


Stumbling Towards the Dawn

by LadyJanus



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Battlestar Galactica - All Media Types, Fifth Imperium Series - David Weber
Genre: Episode: s02e20 Lay Down Your Burdens (2), F/M, Gen, unfinished work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26965759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyJanus/pseuds/LadyJanus
Summary: When Cloud Nine is destroyed, it attracted the attention of not only the Cylons.
Relationships: William Adama/Laura Roslin
Comments: 36
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jiltanith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiltanith/gifts), [oddhack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddhack/gifts).



> Author's Note: I began writing this at the end of BSG Season 2 and had hoped to finish it before the beginning of Season 3, but the best laid plans of mice and men—and women … Although, much of what I have written was posted to my old Live Journal starting in the summer and fall of 2006, and then to the now-defunct Adama/Roslin Survival Instinct Archive, it fell by the wayside in favour real life and other writing projects taking priority. Eventually, I think my fickle Muse lost the inspiration, so it was never finished.
> 
> Recently, Jiltanith and oddhack found my AO3 page and asked me to post the parts, that I do have written, here on AO3. Therefore, this is dedicated to them, and if I do find the inspiration again, I will try to finish it, but I make no promises. Enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine ... just playing. Any recognizable characters belong to someone who is not me. This is a Battlestar Galactica 2003 crossover fic, with David Weber's Mutineer's Moon - Fifth Imperium Series, but I don't think that you need to know the universe of this trilogy of novels to get it. Apologies for any info-dumping at the beginning, but hopefully, it's explained well enough in the story. Any mistakes made in the details, or liberties taken in either universe are strictly my doing. 
> 
> Spoilers: To LDYB Part II - Everything is definitely AU from the moment the Cylons flew over.

_It was a nightmare from which Laura Roslin could not wake. All around the shanty-town, people milled about aimlessly in the endless drizzle like wraiths. Among them, hundreds of menacing Centurions gleamed in the pale light; when the Cylons had arrived the day before, there had been thousands more. Most had fanned out to form a security perimeter around the tent city._

_Laura looked around for Kara, but couldn’t find her. Suddenly she realized that Tigh, Tyrol and many of the other military people were not present and she hoped that they had somehow fled before the Cylons had established themselves._

_Lifting her gaze to the endless grey heavens, she prayed that Adama had been able to get the remnants of the Colonial fleet out. And she wished that she hadn't been so proud when his eyes had begged her to stay with him._

#

Fleet Captain Princess Isis Harriet MacIntyre sat ramrod straight in the command chair of _Emperor Herdan_ , watching her bridge crew as the ship crept stealthily through the molecular cloud. They were headed towards the solar system from which those intriguing signals they’d been tracking for the last couple of weeks had emanated. The cloud was approximately twenty thousand light years from the rim of the galaxy, almost fifteen hundred light years directly “behind” the Sol system and Earth.

Harry brooded silently, but was careful not to let it show on her face; it wouldn’t do to broadcast her emotions to her crew. However, this wasn’t a direction that the Ancient Fourth Imperium—or the Empire that had succeeded it for that matter—had really expanded into. And since her father had re-discovered the ruins of the Empire over fifty years ago and by default become the Emperor of Humanity, it wasn’t really a direction Emperor Colin MacIntyre’s Fifth Imperium given much thought to. Until now.

At first humanity had been too busy fighting the genocidal Achuultani, a xenophobic race of centaur-like aliens whose society had been co-opted by rogue sentient computers that had kept them in a state of war for untold millions of years. The Achuultani had swept through the galaxy time and again, seeking out and destroying all sentient life wherever they found it. It was almost unbelievable even now, and had Harry not been of the first generation of children born during those turbulent war years when Earth had almost been destroyed, she didn’t think that she would have been able to imagine it.

She and her twin brother Sean, the Crown Prince and Heir Apparent, had grown up with the first generation of Achuultani children; children of the prisoners of war her father had captured. Those prisoners had been as shocked as humans had been to learn the true nature of their society; that they had been programmed with this genocidal fear of other species by the very computers they had once charged with ensuring their safety.

Now, those former POWs were building a new society on a planet they called Narhan and if humans were fanatical about building up their technology to withstand future Achuultani incursions, the _Narhani_ , as humanity's new allies had renamed themselves, were that much more motivated to defend their new world and new friends.

And because of the continuing threat from the Achuultani—though right now five or six hundred years removed—they could not afford to become complacent. In looking for help against the aliens, Harry’s father had reactivated a lot of the old Empire’s technology, including ships like _Emperor Herdan_ , an Asgerd-class ship that was the size of a large moon.

The Empire had literally sown the seeds of its own destruction when a lethal bio-weapon its scientists had created had gotten loose. Because of its long incubation period, by the time anyone had realized the danger, it had spread to almost every planet in the Empire, rendering them lifeless. In the intervening forty-five thousand years since the fall of the Empire, the bio-weapon had been neutralized on the planets it had decimated, but other than Earth, which had been a primitive outpost at the time, they’d only found one other planet of humans that the weapon had not touched, Pardal.

However, the Pardalians had survived by giving up all technology that required anything beyond muscle-power and in the process created a fanatical world religion as a safeguard so that humanity on that world would never again reach that level of technological destructiveness. And the priests had ruled Pardal with an iron fist. That is until Harriet and Sean, in escaping an assassination plot, had been drop-kicked with their friends into that world. Harry smiled thinly; the Pardalian Church was still reeling from their _interference_ thirty years later.

“Captain,” Harriet’s executive officer Commander Jos Kirkland said, more a polite courtesy to get her attention. With her neural implants, it was more efficient to simply access his information rather than hear an oral report, but time and again, humans found that the interaction was vital in helping them to put myriad channels of information flow—made possible by the implant technology resurrected from the old Empire—into context.

“Doctor Mabuse and his team are ready with the translation and analysis of those signals we’ve been tracking,” Kirkland reported, blue eyes flashing with excitement. “Everyone’s assembled in conference one.”

“Thanks Jos,” Harry replied and rose. She smiled, nodding to him. “Let’s go see what they’ve come up with, shall we?” He returned her smile as she turned to Commander Rachel Good (Weapon’s Second). “You have the bridge, Commander Good,” Harriet said formally.

Good’s hazel eyes twinkled. “Aye Captain, I have the bridge,” she replied with equal formality.

The trip to the conference room five decks below the bridge took barely forty seconds via the main transit shaft. Harriet stepped out with the lithe grace of a dancer. _Dahak_ , her father’s flagship and cybernetic friend, had been her first playground. According to her mother, she and Sean could use the accelerated transit shafts before they could walk.

Harriet smiled as she saw the conference room and knew instinctively who’d chosen the design this time. Using _Herdan’s_ state-of-the-art holographic technology, it has been configured to resemble the ancient Athenian Acropolis.

“Interesting design, Sam,” Harry said to her chief xenologist. Major Dr. Isamu Mabuse grinned at her, almond eyes flashing in his dark brown face.

“Ain’t it just, Captain,” he drawled, “but it’s actually quite apropos considering the evidence suggests that these people came from Ancient Greece or there about.”

Harriet’s eyebrows flew up almost to the hairline of her sable mane and Mabuse laughed at her obvious surprise. “Then I think that we’d better get started, Sam,” she said as the hologram of her fellow captain and good friend Tamman Givens-Tsien, as well as the holograms of his senior staff, joined them.

As they all settled around the long marble table, Harriet turned the meeting over to Mabuse without further preamble.

The xenologist brought up a video image of an attractive middle-aged woman squaring off against a smooth and handsome, but rather smarmy, younger man in an interview with a beautiful blonde newswoman.

_“Dr. Baltar,”_ the auburn-haired woman said. The translator caught her cold, quiet fury. _“It is the height of irresponsibility to suggest that this planet is a safe haven for a colony.”_

_“Madam President,”_ Baltar replied, smugly confident. _“The people are tired of this endless running. Even the military people are tired. We haven’t seen any sign of Cylon pursuit in weeks and many people agree that this nebular cloud offers further protection against detection. After all, I’m told that it was you who said it when we left the Colonies, Ms Roslin—our people need to find a safe place to settle down and start having babies.”_ There were titters from the audience; Baltar looked directly into the camera and gave a knowing smirk. _“I believe that New Caprica is such a place. Instead of chasing some mythological dream, the people could have a real place to put down roots and build homes … build a new society.”_

_“And give up the journey to Earth?”_ the interviewer said.

_“I, like everyone would have liked to find Earth,”_ Baltar said smoothly. _“But D'Anna, with all due respect to President Roslin's claims of being the Pythia’s dying leader, all we got from Kobol were vague directions to head in the direction of some gods-damned nebula!”_

The woman, Roslin, stared at him in shock as he revealed that piece of information; a wave of angry murmuring rose from the audience. It was obvious that they hadn't known just how tenuous the information was.

_“The people need more from their leader than the half-baked fantasies of a dying woman, and I’d say that the fact that you didn’t die would cast considerable doubt on your role as the foretold leader that would gloriously lead us to Earth—wouldn’t you, Ms Roslin?”_ he said rather nastily. _“I think everyone would agree that you did a fine job finishing President Adar’s term, but it’s time for change, Madam President, time to sweep away old regimes and old ideas. It is time to stop running in fear and to start looking to the future with hope. The people need more than this endless search for Earth!”_ he hammered home and there was a roar of applause from the audience.

“They’re searching for Earth?” Harriet said open-mouthed with shock staring at the paused images. Mabuse’s team all had wide smiles as Harriet and Tamman’s staff members stared at them utterly flabbergasted.

Mabuse’s grin widened. “Actually, they’re looking for _Erets_ , Captain,” he corrected, “but in Ancient Phoenician, the word _eh-reh-tsh_ is the root word that means Earth.”

“And that’s the language they’ve been speaking,” Tamman said, “Ancient Phoenician?”

“Somewhat,” Lena Andruskevich, the head linguist, replied. “It’s largely what Phoenician might have been like had it been a living, spoken language today. But like Modern English evolved from its largely Germanic roots influenced by French, Classical Latin and Greek, this language has evolved from an amalgam of languages based on Phoenician, but heavily influenced by Ancient Greek, Aramaic, Persian and Etruscan, the forerunner to early Latin, as well as a very heavy dose of Ancient Imperial, which they seem to refer to as Ancient Kobolian. However, their written language uses an alphabet that isn’t substantially different from a combination of Ancient Phoenician cross-pollinated with early Greek.”

“Kobolian?” Major Collette Tsien—Tamman’s younger half-sister and commander of Harriet’s Marine contingent—asked.

Mabuse chuckled, dark eyes snapping. “As far as we can tell, according to their sacred scrolls, all human life began on a planet called Kobol and humans were the divine creation of the Lords of Kobol.”

_“What?”_ Tamman demanded.

“I think you’d better explain, Sam,” Harriet prompted.

“Actually, the word _kobol_ was one of the keys to giving us a handle on what was going on,” he replied. “In Ancient Persian it simply means “heaven”. Anyway, what we have from the radio broadcasts and the vids that have somehow been accelerated through hyperspace is pretty fragmentary,” he said more soberly. “However, what we do know is that according to their version of history, about thirty-five hundred years ago the Lords of Kobol created human beings and they lived in harmony on Kobol for a thousand years. Then apparently a great catastrophe befell Kobol and the people were forced to flee. The Lords created a great ship to take the people away; twelve of the Tribes of Kobol went to a binary system where twelve worlds had been specially prepared for them. However, the Thirteenth Tribe took another ship to found colony far away, a shining blue world called Earth.”

“They believe that _Earth_ is a colony?” Collette said as disbelief mounted.

“I don’t understand this,” Harriet said in confusion. “How could _anyone_ , way out here, have come from ancient Earth? _Dahak_ was in Earth’s skies for fifty thousand years! He certainly would not have let any mutineers off the planet and they were the only ones with ships.”

There were nods of agreement all around the table. The ancient Fourth Imperium ship, _Dahak_ , disguised as Earth’s moon, had indeed been trapped in orbit of the planet for fifty thousand years when a mutiny started by Anu, the chief of engineering, in an effort to take over, had disabled the ship’s key systems. However, _Dahak’s_ commander at the time, Fleet Captain Druaga, had given the ship’s central computer the task of suppressing the mutiny by all means necessary. Druaga had rendered the ship uninhabitable and the entire crew—mutineers and loyalists alike—had been forced to flee to Earth. He’d then ordered _Dahak_ not to allow any mutinous officers back on board; only loyal crewmembers or their descendents were to be allowed to return to the ship, which was why when Harriet’s father, United States astronaut, Commander Colin MacIntyre had first set foot on the old ship’s bridge, _Dahak_ had immediately shanghaied him to be captain.

But while the loyalist faction of ship’s original crew had been forced to flee in simple lifeboats, the mutineers had fled in _Dahak’s_ parasites, armed sublight battleships, which they’d clandestinely used to hide for the next fifty thousand years. And in order to keep the loyalists from being a threat to their security or getting back to _Dahak_ , Anu and his mutineers had searched out each functioning lifeboat and destroyed them, killing as many of the original crew as he could find. Inevitably, the survivors lost their technology, but in the process gave rise to Earth’s modern humans, supplanting her indigenous humanoid species, including the Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon man and other early examples of _Homo sapiens_.

In the interim, Anu had forced most of his minions into stasis to “await their glorious triumph” _and never woke them up_. Instead, the mutinous engineer and his inner circle had used those unsuspecting sleepers as a source of young, technologically enhanced bodies in an effort to obtain virtual immortality. Imperial technology was such that once enhanced, _Dahak’s_ original officers could expect an average lifespan of five to six hundred years, but eventually they would die. However, in an effort to cheat death, once their bodies began to wear out, Anu and his henchmen would take a candidate from stasis, remove the brain and have their own brain surgically transferred into the new body.

Harriet shuddered inwardly. Only one ship of mutineers had defied Anu … the parasite battleship _Nergal_ , commanded by Harriet’s own grandfather, Horus. Sickened by Anu’s slaughter of the loyalists, the crew of _Nergal_ had committed a second mutiny against the mad engineer and for fifty thousand years tried to mitigate Anu’s worst excesses in order to give the inhabitants of Earth a chance. But while Anu had spent much of his long exile awake, hopping from body to body, the crew of _Nergal_ could only stay awake for a few years—at the most a decade or two—at a time, trying to help the ancient civilizations that rose up across the planet, before being forced back into stasis to sleep away the centuries.

However, afraid of those infant civilizations creating technologies that could be a threat to him, Anu had systematically destroyed each as quickly as he could. Not until the Middle Ages—when perhaps tired of the long exile—did he begin to foster development of indigenous technology. Over the millennia, _Dahak_ had destroyed every ship, probe or other piece of Imperial technology Anu had sent into space. Horus believed that Anu hoped that by spurring indigenous _Terran_ civilization to high technology, locally-produced ships and space technology would be exempt from _Dahak’s_ orders to destroy Imperial ships and technology trying to leave Earth.

“So how did humans speaking Ancient Phoenician get way the hell out here?” Harriet reiterated in frustration. “ _Dahak_ is sure that no ship arrived at or left Earth for fifty thousand years. Perhaps someone could have slipped out during the first couple hundred years while power levels were very low directly after the mutiny, but certainly not after he repaired his systems.”

“And then they wouldn’t be speaking Phoenician and Greek,” Andruskevich pointed out with a smile. “The roots of those languages developed on Earth less than five thousand years ago; Phoenician, as these Kobolians speak it and especially the written alphabet in this form, showed up around 1700 to 1400 B.C., while Greek is generally accepted to have started flourishing only about 1000 to 900 B.C., although they seem to be using a fairly early version of it.”

Mabuse laughed again. “Seems impossible, doesn’t it,” he said eyes flashing in amusement. “But the problem is that everyone has assumed that there were only two factions of Imperial officers on Earth after the mutiny—well three if you count _Nergal’s_ crew—Anu’s mutineers, Druaga’s loyalists and Horus’ double-mutineers.”

“Who else could there have been?” Tamman demanded.

#


	2. Chapter 2

“Fleet Captain Daius’ scientists,” Mabuse said looking insufferably smug.

_“Who?”_ Jos Kirkland said in confusion.

“Fleet Captain (Sciences) Daius in command of the Imperial parasite survey and science ship, _Ankhoblan_ ,” Isamu Mabuse replied, “which when translated literally from Ancient Imperial means—”

“Heaven’s embrace,” Harriet said hoarsely in sudden recognition. “Khobl … _Kobol_!”

“Exactly, Captain,” Mabuse said. “Looking through our archives of _Dahak’s_ files, we found that at the time of the mutiny, one ship had already gone down to the surface of Earth … _Ankhoblan_. Daius commanded of a team of scientists—anthropologists, biologists, botanists, geologists _et cetera_ , whose job was to catalogue and report on the Earth’s indigenous population and biosphere for the Imperial University of Birhat’s Star-Brethren Project. The purpose of the Project was to track the development of the different human worlds that had been re-seeded after previous Achuultani attacks. Daius’ people had orders to study the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon societies and collect specimens.”

There were a few moments of pregnant silence as they absorbed the incredible information. “When Daius failed to report to him after the mutiny, _Dahak_ assumed that Anu had destroyed the _Ankhoblan_ the same way he had all the loyalist lifeboats,” Mabuse continued. “You see, Daius would have been loyal; he was Captain Druaga’s best friend and moreover, married to Druaga's younger sister, Ehra. Furthermore, _Ankhoblan_ was a science ship—it had some weapons and shielding, but nothing that could stand up to a battleship armed with gravitonic warheads and other goodies.

“What happened next is pure speculation on our part,” Mabuse said with another infectious smile. “But we think that being a shrewd customer and seeing what a despicable, genocidal madman Anu was, Daius and the crew of _Ankhoblan_ immediately went to ground.”

“Then why didn’t they contact _Nergal_?” Collette asked.

It was Harriet who answered her. “Because right after the mutiny, they wouldn’t have taken the chance,” she replied. “That Grandfather Horus had the battleship _Nergal_ would have immediately identified him as a mutineer. I doubt they even knew that he’d turned against Anu.”

“Harry is undoubtedly correct,” Mabuse said. “We think that they went into stasis, probably emerging—rather like the crew of _Nergal_ did—every couple of thousand years to get the lay of the land and see what Anu was up to. They would have kept their heads down, but we also believe that they continued their original mission, collecting specimens from the indigenous populations of Earth, and sampling from as many major time periods as they could.”

_“Come again?”_ Kirkland said in disbelief.

“Think Jos,” Lena Andruskevich said. “You have a language that’s based on 18th Century B.C. Phoenician, mixed with ancient Greek, Persian, Etruscan and Aramaic—and even healthy doses of ancient Egyptian, Chinese and Hindi, plus elements that suggest bits of very early Norse and Germanic languages!”

“Furthermore,” said Mabuse, “look at those faces.” He filled the holographic display with hundreds of pictures. “I’d say that every major race and cultural sub-group from Earth is represented among these Kobolian Colonists. These faces could be the faces you would see in any reasonably cosmopolitan and multi-cultural city on Earth, or anywhere else in the Empire today for that matter. We think they figured out a way to get off Earth and turned _Ankhoblan_ into a veritable Ark, with the very purpose of saving as much of humanity as they could.”

“Explain,” Harriet demanded. “How could they have left the planet? When? _Dahak_ —”

“Yes, let’s not forget _Dahak_ ,” Mabuse said with a smirk. “They would have seen everything Anu put in Earth’s sky shot down ruthlessly and it’s quite possible that any probes they’d sent up had also been shot down because _Dahak_ assumed they came from Anu or his sympathizers. Now, what would that have said to Daius?” he asked rhetorically. “Communications was one of the first things Anu knocked out during the mutiny, so they couldn’t have known what had happened up there and there was no way to know what Fleet Captain Druaga had programmed into the central computer or even if the programming was still functioning. The only things they knew were that _Dahak_ immediately shot down anything sent out into space and that Anu killed anyone with any hint of Imperial technology.

“Well, taking into account what we could glean about the Colonists’ culture and history from those vids,” he continued, “and adding some judicious speculations of our own from the evidence available, we believe that Daius’ group was active in and around the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean on and off for millennia. However, they obviously travelled extensively sampling the Earth’s populations, probably when Anu’s activity was low after he built his stronghold in Antarctica. Then approximately thirty-five hundred years ago something happened to make it possible for them to leave Earth without attracting _Dahak’s_ attention.”

“And what would that be?” Tamman asked. Harriet could feel the anticipation in the room as they waited expectantly for Mabuse’s answer.

“We all agree that it would have to have been a catastrophe of nuclear proportions to blind _Dahak’s_ sensors,” he said. “Checking through _Dahak’s_ files and correlating it with Earth’s historical records a couple of events do stand out. One of them is the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D., which destroyed Pompeii, spread ash around the world and completely blinded _Dahak’s_ sensors for almost thirty minutes, but that event happened far too late to correspond with our timeframe. Then there was an event _Dahak_ recorded in 9026 B.C., which scrambled his sensors for about an hour. It appears that Anu used a gravitonic warhead against something in the Atlantic Ocean about one hundred kilometres outside the Strait of Gibraltar. Now we know it wasn’t _Nergal_ , because at that point the ship was hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest and everyone on board had gone into stasis about two hundred years earlier.

“However, if you correlate this event with Plato’s account of the sinking of the island of Atlantis just outside the Pillars of Hercules—” There was a collective gasp of comprehension as another wide smile split Mabuse’s features. “I think we now know the source of that enduring legend of a golden city sinking beneath the waves because of the wrath of some vengeful god,” he laughed. “Curiously, this also fits with some speculations that the Greek Pantheon of Gods may have been appropriated from an older culture—maybe the Atlanteans, who perhaps called their most powerful patrons by their original _Imperial_ names; Daius, Ehra, Posedawone, Damate, Haesta, Haidous, Asrhedike, Ataeona, Apellon, Artema, Ehremi, Ehrion, Daiwonesos and Ehvaistos.”

He filled the holographic display again, this time with drawings and bronze statues with a very familiar look to them. “I do know that Horus was very interested in the genesis of the Greek Gods when the inhabitants of _Nergal_ woke about twenty-five hundred years ago, but if we’re correct, by that time Daius and _Ankhoblan_ had already left Earth and they’d simply missed each other. Anyway, like the Ancient Greeks, these Kobolian Colonials worship their Lords of Kobol and call them by the familiar names of Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Hades, Aphrodite, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Ares, Dionysus and Hephaestus. Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth, had been one of the original twelve Olympian Gods, but she was later replaced by Dionysus, the God of Wine.”

Again, there was dead silence for a few minutes before Tamman said, “But the Atlantis incident was too early to have been the one used to escape Earth.”

“But the volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini approximately thirty-five hundred years ago fits perfectly,” Harriet said smiling.

“Yes, it certainly does, Captain,” Mabuse chuckled. “Remember, they had Posedawone, _Dahak’s_ premiere expert on geology and planetary science, with them. He would have known the significance of such an eruption where a ship’s sensors were concerned. In fact, I would hazard a guess that it was probably witnessing an earlier eruption that gave them the idea. If they timed it right, it is possible that they could have ridden the ash plume straight up into the atmosphere and if they were on the side of the planet facing directly away from the moon—or rather _Dahak_ disguised as the moon—then it is possible that they could have executed a slingshot away from Earth and in that short window, while his sensors were blinded from the blast, get away.”

“But that still doesn’t explain how they got all the way out here in a ship without an interstellar drive, or why,” Harriet said more soberly. “Why wouldn’t they have headed for the heart of the old Imperium?”

“We don’t know,” he replied, the first hint of frustration reaching his eyes. “Perhaps they were able to rig something up after leaving the Sol system. After all, Alpha Centauri is only four light years from Earth and would only have taken about eight to ten years at the half light speed maximum for sublight drives like _Ankhoblan’s_. Daius had some of the Imperium’s finest scientific minds in people like Ehvaistos, Ataeona and Posedawone and not to mention their junior officers. As for returning to the Imperium—”

He gave an eloquent shrug. “Perhaps having heard not a peep out of the Imperium for forty-five thousand years to that point, they concluded—quite rightly—that it had collapsed and wasn’t worth their time going all the way to Birhat to find out,” he said quietly. “Maybe they decided that it was best to get the hell out of Dodge while the getting was good. Furthermore, this area is so far out towards the Galactic Rim, off the traditional vectors of attack for the Achuultani, maybe they figured that it would be enough to protect their people from such attack.”

“And perhaps it was,” Lena Andruskevich said ruefully, “but it was not enough to protect their people from themselves. Captain,” she said looking directly at Harriet, “from what we’ve gathered, it seems that these Kobolians went the way of the Achuultani and created sentient computers, artificial intelligences they call Cylons to do all their dirty work … including fighting their wars for them.”

_“Jesus H. Christ!”_ Major Diana "Kali" Ingram—commander of _Herdan's_ fighter wings—swore under her breath.

“Are you sure, Dr. Andruskevich?” Brashan, Tamman’s Narhani executive officer asked. After the war, Brashan's father, Brashieel, was the first Achuultani to accept the hand of friendship that humanity had extended to their ancient enemy.

“Quite sure,” she replied grimly to the powerful centaur-like alien. “However, instead of protecting the Kobolians to death by turning them into slaves and manipulating them into killing every other sentient in the galaxy as the Achuultani Master Computers had done, fifty years ago these Cylons simply rebelled, turned on their human masters and tried to wipe them out. The humans fought back and the wars ended in a draw about forty years ago. The Cylons withdrew and were not heard from again. Then about two years ago, they returned and nuked all twelve of the Kobolian Colonies to radioactive wastelands in one massive surprise attack.”

You could almost hear the proverbial pin drop as Harriet, Tamman and their senior staffs tried to comprehend the horror.

"These people are refugees, captains," Mabuse said, “literally the last of their people—less than fifty thousand out of over forty billion. Apparently the Cylons came up with a bunch of new cyborg models that could imitate humans—infiltrate their society and sabotage them from within before the Kobolians even knew what hit them."

Another set of images filled the display. “As far as we can tell, these are their leaders,” he said. Highlighting a craggy-faced, older man in a uniform that wasn’t all that dissimilar from Harriet’s own, Mabuse continued. “This is Admiral William Adama, commander of the fleet and the Battlestar _Galactica_. Apparently _Galactica_ is about fifty years old, a veteran of the previous Cylon wars, and had been slated for decommissioning when the attacks occurred. And Adama himself was a bit of a throw-back due for retirement. The reason that his was the one ship that the Cylons couldn’t attack cybernetically is because he wouldn’t allow any integrated networks on board the vessel.”

A handsome, golden-haired young man was highlighted next. “This is Commander Lee Adama, commander of the Battlestar _Pegasus_ and Adama’s son. _Pegasus_ is a newer ship than _Galactica_ and is a recent addition to the refugee fleet. It had been commanded originally by an Admiral Helena Cain, but she was assassinated by a Cylon prisoner shortly after they joined the fleet. Incidentally, Admiral Adama had almost suffered the same fate a couple of months before Cain showed up, when a Cylon infiltrator posing as one of his pilots tried to kill him. Anyway, Lee Adama started out as commander of _Galactica’s_ fighter squadrons—and ladies, apparently his call-sign is Apollo for a good reason.” There was a roar of laughter at his quip.

The smarmy man from the earlier video banished Harriet’s good mood for some reason she couldn’t put into words. “This is their current President, Dr. Gaius Baltar,” Mabuse said. “As far as we can tell, he was the Vice President and is their resident Cylon expert, as his area of study seems to be computer technology and cybernetics. He won the recent election over the previous President, Dr. Laura Roslin,” he said highlighting Baltar’s opponent. The older woman’s intelligent green eyes were incredibly tired, yet they compelled Harriet’s attention.

“And what’s her area of expertise,” Collette quipped.

“Early childhood education,” Andruskevich deadpanned, eyes twinkling merrily. “She was a schoolteacher.”

“A _schoolteacher_?” Jos Kirkland repeated in disbelief.

“Kindergarten apparently, from what we could learn,” Lena Andruskevich chuckled.

“Let me get this straight,” Kirkland said. “Their _President_ was a bloody kindergarten teacher?”

“Hey, you try dealing with a classroom full of fractious five-year-olds on a daily basis,” she replied still grinning as Harriet burst out laughing again. “I'd say it was an excellent training ground for a politician, and according to the few older media reports, she was a pretty good president. She did a lot to keep the fleet together and going over the first year—and she did it all while fighting terminal breast cancer.” There was again a moment of silence as they regarded the woman’s image. “You see, Roslin was the Secretary of Education before the Colonies were nuked. Only she survived because at the time she’d been representing the government at _Galactica’s_ decommissioning ceremony—apparently the ship was slated to become a floating museum under the purview of the Department of Education. She was forty-third in line to the presidency, but when the dust settled, the whole enchilada was dumped on her lap.”

“But apparently, even half-dead on cancer meds,” Mabuse continued, eyes alight with amusement and admiration, “Roslin was still hell on wheels. In fact, just before he was shot by the Cylon spy, Adama threw her in _Galactica’s_ brig over a debacle involving one Lieutenant Kara Thrace, call-sign Starbuck.”

“The leader of their military threw their civilian leader in the _brig_?” Harriet said in disbelief.

An impish, insouciant young blonde with laughing eyes floated to the front of the holotank. “It seems that on the eve of an important offensive against the Cylons, Roslin went over Adama’s head and sent Starbuck on a suicide mission back to Caprica, the nuked-out, Cylon-infested lead colony, all on the strength of a vision she had when under the influence of cancer meds. Starbuck was to retrieve an ancient artefact called the Arrow of Apollo, which according to Roslin would open the Tomb of Athena on the newly rediscovered planet of Kobol. Remember how Baltar sneered at her for claiming to be the foretold Pythian leader?” Mabuse asked.

Harriet nodded as he continued. “Well, apparently this was all foretold in one of their sacred texts. Now on Earth, at the Oracle of Delphi, the women who tended the Oracle and spoke its prophecies were given the title of “Pythia”. In the Kobolian _Scrolls of Pythia_ , it predicts that at the end of the world, a leader dying from a wasting disease would lead the survivors back to Kobol and find the directions that would lead them to the Thirteenth Colony, Earth.

“Well, you can imagine how that probably sat with an old soldier like Adama,” Mabuse chuckled. “Furthermore, Starbuck was his best fighter pilot and practically his daughter—she’d been engaged to his younger son, but apparently the boy had died in an accident a few years earlier.”

Tamman shook his head. “I can’t decide if this is a bloody tragedy or a freaking comedy,” he said in disbelief.

Mabuse laughed. “It gets better,” he said. “In the middle of all this, Lee Adama mutinied against his father when the troops were sent to arrest Roslin and both were summarily tossed in the brig. However, the mission against the Cylons went off without a hitch and they blew up one of enemy’s mother ships. Then in the middle of the celebrations, the young woman who delivered the nuke turned around and put two rounds into Adama’s gut right there on his bridge.” He continued after a moment of silence. “Anyway, while in the brig, it all came out about Roslin being the foretold leader—wait, have we told you about the Quorum yet?”

“The _what_?” Tamman asked.

“Ah … it seems to be sort of a Senate,” Mabuse explained. “The Quorum of Twelve is a body in which there is a representative from each of the twelve colonies. It's supposed to function as a counter weight against the elected government—the President and her Cabinet. Well, they got wind of Roslin being the Prophet and started demanding that Adama's second in command, a Colonel Saul Tigh, release her. In the meantime, they had left Kobol and Tigh had declared martial law. Then everything went apeshit—if you'll pardon the expression ma'am—when the Cylons attacked."

Harriet chuckled as he continued. "The next thing we know, Roslin and Lee Adama had broken out of the brig and went on the run with one of the Quorum members, one Mr. Thomas Zarek—" He was a handsome man, Harriet decided, but his dark eyes were hard and dangerous. "Zarek is a former prisoner, a terrorist bomber who had been on a prison barge taking prisoners to their parole hearings when the Cylons nuked the colonies."

"They let a former prisoner—a terrorist _bomber_ —be a senator?" Diana Ingram said in obvious disgust.

"He'd served his time and according to their laws, could be a citizen again," Andruskevich replied. "As such, he became the duly elected representative of the Sagittaron Colonial faction of the refugee fleet when they voted him in—but right now he serves as Baltar’s Vice President."

"Oh, how very _progressive_ of them," Ingram said sarcastically. "Wait a minute … Sagittaron … _Caprica_?

Andruskevich laughed quietly. "We were wondering how long it would take someone to make the connection," she said. "As if there wasn't enough evidence to show that they originally came from Earth, the Twelve Colonies of Kobol were named after the twelve constellations that make up the Zodiac; Caprica, Aquaria, Picon, Arilon, Tauron, Geminon, Canceron, Leonis, Virgon, Libron, Scorpia and Sagittaron. Why? We haven't a clue."

"But their names are so … so, well—Terran-sounding," Kirkland said in confusion. "Really, William Adama, Laura Roslin, Lee, Kara, Saul?"

"Not really," Andruskevich said with a wide smile. "Remember, these people were taken from different regions of _Earth_. "William is from an old Germanic root, _Wolhelm_ , probably passed down from ancient Cyrillic—and the Kobolians pronounce it rather like _Wehlehem_ ; it's our translation program that renders it to the English equivalent, _William_. And Laura is an early alternate form of the rather ancient name _Laurel_ , for the bay laurel tree, probably passed down from ancient Etruscan and they tend to pronounce it _Laawrah_ , rather similar to the way modern Italians would—with the emphasis on the first syllable. Saul and Adama are old Hebrew names; Kara and Thomas are names of Greek origin, while Lee could have come from that smattering of Chinese or any number of other roots, as it's a fairly simple phoneme."

"Anyway," Mabuse said. "Roslin and Lee Adama escaped back to Kobol, taking about a third of their fleet with them. When Starbuck returned with the Arrow of Apollo, they went down to the planet, which by this time was also infested with Cylons also looking for the map to Earth. Meanwhile, Adama recovered and decided to go back for them—heal the breach, so to speak. The long and the short of it, he and Roslin apparently found the Tomb of Athena and opened it, retrieving the directions to Earth. They all returned to the fleet and lived happily ever after with food shortages, black market thugs and terrorist madness, until Baltar became President, convinced the populace that they'd finally outrun the Cylons and settled them all on that planet."

"And the _dumb-asses_ actually fell for that?" Ingram's expression of disgust said exactly what she thought of civilian short-sightedness and lack of tactical forethought. Diana Ingram was a born soldier; one of the many children left orphaned by Achuultani war when Earth's planetary shield failed during the bombardment, she had had a hard life before she’d found family again in the bosom of the Imperial Military. "Why didn't Adama stop them?"

"I doubt he had enough people or firepower to stop fifty thousand people, Diana," Harriet said.

"Well he threw Roslin in the brig," Ingram retorted. "And she sounds a lot saner in comparison—even hopped up on drugs. Why didn't he simply throw this Baltar's ass in the brig when he started spewing that nonsense?"

"I think his treatment of Roslin was exactly why his hands were tied with Baltar," Mabuse said soberly. "Throwing Roslin in the brig … though from what we can tell, she went willingly so that there wouldn't be bloodshed … That act was in effect a military coup. It was something he'd done in anger—he had provocation, mind you—but I don't think it was something he could allow to happen again."

"He's an honourable man," Andruskevich said quietly. "In fact, in one of the last transmissions we snagged, when it was obvious that the elections were going south for Roslin, it appears that her team tried to steal the election with some "ballot irregularities" as Zarek called them to the media. We don't know that Roslin knew about it—though being a shrewd customer, she probably did—but what is fairly certain is that Adama was the one who put a stop to it."

"And what are the odds that these Cylons won't find them?" Ingram said angrily.

"Not good," Mabuse replied. "There are still Cylon spies hidden within their population. You can be sure that they're working to alert their ships of the Colonials' location, regardless of any protection the molecular cloud might provide."

"And remember what attracted our attention to this sector in the first place, Diana," Harriet said.

"A nuclear explosion."

Harriet held her gaze steadily. "A nuclear explosion that could have been detected by the Cylons," she said.

#


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And one more before I turn in!

_Laura looked out over her sorely decimated schoolroom. Less than a quarter of her elementary students had shown up for school and nearly half were orphans with nowhere else to go during the day. Only one of her students older than twelve years old had shown up; the rest were all either working at home with their families, or for those that had no family left, working on Baltar's chain-gangs just to stay alive. Only the thin urchin, Alexander, who looked younger than most ten-year-olds, but was more intelligent than most adults, had shown up. He grinned impishly at her and for some reason it cheered her heart beyond all measure._

_Still, she had almost thirty children to keep calm and safe, and somewhere in there, try to teach. Her assistant, Maya, was looking after the under-sevens, while Laura tried to keep the older children's minds on their mathematics work. She was glad for the distraction teaching offered._

_Suddenly, Laura felt it vibrating through her bones … the pounding. The first time she'd felt it was when Cylon Centurions had boarded_ Galactica _. A primal terror gripped her, but she forced herself to remain calm as it came inexorably closer to her makeshift school. Maya's head popped up; she'd heard it at last. Instinctively, as the young woman lifted baby Isis onto her lap, the younger children drew closer to her. The other children—even her indomitable Alexander—now looked to Laura in fear, their eyes begging her for comfort. She had none to give._

_The flap of the school tent parted; the two Centurions faced each other holding it open. Gaius Baltar entered together with a copy of the tall, blonde Shelley Godfrey Cylon model—the one Laura had seen him with that last day on Caprica … the day the Cylons had destroyed the Colonies. Behind them, a copy of the Leoben model entered with a Valerii copy and ... Felix Gaeta. She understood now that her re-election campaign had been doomed from the start; she doubted that even now anyone would believe that he was a Cylon without meeting another copy of him. After meeting Gaeta's curiously guilty gaze, the entrance of D'Anna Biers—supposed journalist—didn't really surprise her at all. With the entrance of a Doral copy and a black male Laura supposed had to be Kara’s ‘Simon’ model, her school tent now felt unbearably crowded._

_Laura shoved her fear down into a very small box and shut the lid tight. Keeping as many of her people alive was the only thing that mattered now._

Oh Gods, please … Bill … please hurry! _The despairing prayer escaped her as she experienced a sudden unaccountable sense of dread; she hoped it reached across the void … that Adama could somehow pull a miracle out of his hat._

_"Mr. President," she said calmly, "this is a surprise. I would have thought you'd have more important things to do with your new friends here … or perhaps I should say old friends," she said looking significantly at the blonde Cylon._

_The worm had enough of his humanity intact to squirm at her words, but his discomfort didn't last long. "Ms Roslin," he said. "The Cylons want peace, but make no mistake—they will not tolerate any subversion or resistance. As a sign of their good will, they will be providing supplies to us—they assure me that they have humanity's best interests in mind, but any challenge to our authority will be swiftly dealt with. Don't think that we haven't noticed the disappearance of the military personnel. Where are they?"_

_"_ Our _authority, Baltar?" she said. She was unable to stop herself from needling him, as worried parents rushed into the schoolroom through the back entrance. Their children raced to the safety of their arms, but Laura knew that it was an illusion; no one was safe anywhere. "Tell me,_ Mr. President _, when did you realise that you were a Cylon—before or after you and your friend there nuked the Colonies?"_

_"I am_ not _a frakking Cylon," Baltar retorted heatedly. Suddenly he seemed to realise who he was standing with and looked at the Cylons so fearfully that Laura almost wanted to feel sorry for him. Instead, she laughed bitterly._

_"No, you were just frakking one," she said; she didn't look at the colonists who gave a collective gasp of horror. "You gave her access to our defence net."_

_"Ms Roslin, what are you talking about?"_

_Laura recognized the hoarse, fearful voice as belonging to Paul Troyolus, one of Sarah Porter's deputies in the Geminese faction. Porter—another person whom she'd allowed to manipulate her into serve their own ends. In the end, Laura's compromising her convictions on abortion and a woman's autonomy over her own body had been all for nothing. Porter had failed to deliver the promised votes and had in fact—as Laura learned later—told her people to "vote their conscience", which was code to vote for Baltar's insane fantasy of_ New Caprica _._

_"Mr. Troyolus," she said harshly, sparing the old man a glance. His latest—very young and very pregnant—wife cradled his youngest daughter in her arms, while his three older children huddled in a corner. The oldest girl was only about three or four years younger than the wife._

_"I would have thought that as a close, personal friend of our_ Beloved Leader _there, he would have told you of his greatest triumph,” Laura continued contemptuously, “forty billion people dead in the space of an afternoon—"_

_"Shut up!" Baltar screamed eyes blazing as he advanced on her. Laura could smell the liquor on his breath. Not ambrosia—that had run out months ago—but the rotgut he'd become more and more dependent on as his fantasy world had become mired in the endless mud. "All of you—get your frakking brats out of here! You're all under curfew until further notice, so get the frak out!"_

_As the colonists turned tail and ushered the children out with almost indecent haste, Baltar turned to Laura._

_"As for you,_ Ms Roslin _, get it through your head that you are not in control here anymore!" he shouted. "You forget yourself, you arrogant bitch, and everything I've done for you." Laura felt an icy chill trickle down her back. "You forget that_ I _made you—_ I _gave you this second chance at life and now_ I'm _taking it the_ frak _away," he said with a cruel smile. "You see, as you saw fit to kill their only God-begotten child, the Cylons have decided that you're the next best thing for studying this phase of their evolution—after all, it's her blood running through your veins. They are going to dissect you and I'll get to watch!"_

#

The klaxon's alarm cut through Harriet's consciousness and she hooked into _Herdan's_ net, before she'd even awakened. Her husband of twenty-six years, Stomald, had her uniform ready by the time she was updated and conscious enough to get out of bed. He'd been a Pardalian priest when she'd first met him almost thirty years ago, and had been instrumental in bringing his backward planet into the Fifth Imperium's fold. Now he served as spiritual guide to the Pardalians who had chosen to join the Imperial Military.

Harry took a moment after donning her uniform to run her hands through his greying hair; it was a constant reminder that his lifespan would be but a fraction of her own. By the time Pardal had been discovered, because of the Pardalians' general health and original short lifespan, Stomald had been too old for the full range of biotechtic enhancements and implants Harry and most Terran humans of her generation had received in early childhood, which would extend their lives for at least five or six centuries.

_Still_ , she thought, banishing her morbid fears, _we'll have at least another century together_.

He wrapped his arms about her waist and kissed her with the kind of thoroughness that had led to the conception of each of their eight children. "Go," he said softly as he let go.

She leaned in and kissed him gently again before hurrying out. Seven minutes after that first alarm, Fleet Captain Princess Isis Harriet MacIntyre, stepped out of the transit shaft and onto her bridge.

Jos Kirkland greeted her perfunctorily. "Captain, as the OOD reported earlier, the Cylons have found the colony," he said, bringing up the tactical holographic display of six large ships that each looked like two pyramids held face to face by a short cylinder. Captain Tamman Givens-Tsien's hologram looked on with interest. "All of a sudden, they were just there—they could only have come in from hyperspace, but there was no discernable hyper-wake, captains, just a massive energy spike and there they were, far deeper in this system than I thought any ship could enter from hyper—just inside the fifth planet. But just as impressive, is that the two Colonial Battlestars and the other ships in their fleet hypered out the same way as soon as they detected the Cylon ships and they were even deeper inside this system's gravity well—in orbit of the fourth planet. But that isn't even the most impressive thing, sirs—" Kirkland drew a deep breath and looked at the two captains in obvious shock.

"What is it, Jos?" Harriet asked as he brought himself back under iron control.

"Captain," he said manipulating the holo-controls again. "Two point four seven seconds after our sensors registered massive energy spikes from the Colonial ships _entering_ hyper, they registered similar spikes outside this system here— _fifteen point five three light years from this solar system—_ " Harry and Tamman looked at him in absolute shock. "If our sensors hadn't been at max in the first place, scanning for the Cylons, we never would have known where they went. How ever those ship's engines work, sirs, they use completely different hyperspace theories and we have no defence against them."

"All right, Commander," Harriet said, her mind on automatic as she digested this incredible news; nothing they'd scanned from the Colonial ships suggested this—in fact, much of their technology had seemed laughably primitive—but until they saw their hyper engines in action, there really wasn't any way to know. She understood now why their radio and video signals had been accelerated through hyperspace, and she regretted her overly cautious approach now. Jos was understating the matter if they were about to make new enemies of homicidal machines with this kind of capability. But there was no way they would leave these Colonials on this rock to the tender mercies of those machines.

"The Cylons probably haven't detected us yet." Kirkland nodded, looking infinitely calmer. "Let's keep it that way," she continued. "Fire up the hypercom and contact _Vengeance_ ; she and _Fleur-de-Lys_ were scouting close to that area—it should take them less than two days to get there and make contact with the Adamas. Meanwhile, Tamman, we have to get a plan in place to determine the Cylons' ground force advantage and get our Marines down to make contact with the Colonials on the planet. Major Tsien," she began and Collette Tsien's hologram blossomed before her.

The commander of her Marine contingent looked like a predator straining at her leash.

#


	4. Chapter 4

_It was white and stark, this place of death. The prick of the needle was barely felt as Laura Roslin crawled into herself to die again. She lay naked and exposed upon the cold slab, arms and legs useless dead weight; she had awakened with her mind and senses knife-sharp—and her body paralysed below the neck._

_His voice was harsh in her ear as he ran a hand up her right leg._

_"Baltar may have been a fool, but this blood proves that the child was viable," Leoben said. "Me, I can understand—Sharon or Doral, I can understand, but infanticide?"_

_Laura stared at the one spot of imperfection to mar the expanse of white ceiling._

_An interminable time later, a new voice insinuated itself into her consciousness as fingers coiled about her throat._

_"You killed her, our God's daughter," a Shelley Godfrey Cylon said. "The fertile hybrid promised to us by God!" she raged. "Why?"_

_The last time she'd died, Laura had fought for every breath. This time she did not fight … did not struggle against the sinews of corded steel wrapped around her throat; breath would come, or it would not. Death would come, or it would not._

_"Stop!" Leoben shouted, "Stop it!"_

_Laura felt the Shelley Cylon's hand being forcibly ripped away; she coughed involuntarily._

_"She deserves to die!" Shelley screamed. "She killed our child! She killed God's child!"_

_"Then let Laura Roslin take her place," Leoben said coldly and Laura's heart froze. "Baltar in his infinite stupidity—or wisdom—gave her every gift that God had planned for_ our _Hera when he cured her cancer using the child's blood. They once hailed her as Hera to Adama’s Zeus, now she will be our Hera. Symmetry, sister—God is symmetry in all things. All my scans show that the cancer is gone and her aging has been slowed. Even her reproductive dysfunction has been repaired … and we won't have to wait for_ her _to be force-grown to maturity."_

_Remembering Kara’s description of the women on the Cylon farms back on Caprica, it was then that Laura felt her last kernel of hope—that hope she'd buried deep in her soul and dared not allow herself to acknowledge—shrivel and die._

#

The small figure slipped silently through the tangled forest like a thin, pale ghost; leaves rustled in his wake. Stopping to look around furtively, he crawled under a thick copse of thorn-filled shrubs and into the hidden mouth of the cave they concealed.

"Chief Tyrol?" he called, his thin whisper echoing off the rock walls. "Starbuck, Colonel Tigh? It's me, Alexander—Boxey."

Figures materialised out of the shadows carrying sidearms. Starbuck rushed forward and pulled the little boy into a warm bear hug. "You shouldn't have come, Boxey—it's too dangerous," she said worriedly.

"How did you get away, son?" Tigh asked. "Are you sure you weren’t followed?"

"I'm pretty sure, sir," the boy said in a small voice. "But I had to come—I just had to!" He seemed on the verge of tears. Starbuck took his rucksack and tossed it to one of the other soldiers. "They came and took Ms Roslin!" he all but wailed like the lost child he was. "They—they closed the school … the bread was all Cally could get together before curfew. Nobody is helping—they're all scared and Cally couldn't come with the baby so close and they would have missed her."

"Who took Laura, Boxey?" Starbuck asked, but her face showed that she knew that dreaded answer.

"D-doctor Baltar," the terrified boy answered, "and the Cylons he brought with him! They took her up to one of the Basestars. Dr. Baltar said that they were going to _dissect_ her because she killed the Cylon baby and because of the blood he put in her! He was so mad at her because she told everybody what he did and now they're going to kill _her!_ "

This time he did burst into tears as Starbuck gathered him up into her arms. After a few moments, she tried to calm him down. "All right, Boxey, take a deep breath," she said. "I know that you've had a very bad fright, but if we're going to have any chance of helping the colony, of helping Laura, you need to calm down." The boy nodded and swiped at his tear and dirt-streaked face.

"Now everyone here knows just how brave you are and what a first-class brain you have," she said. "You need to tell us everything you heard—and I mean _everything_."

Boxey nodded again, laid his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. "Ms Roslin was teaching us math, while Miss Maya was listening to the little kids' reading. Then there was a pounding noise coming towards the school. Then Dr. Baltar came in with the blonde Cylon model some people called Shelley and some other people have been calling Gina—I heard Mr. Troyolus tell Royan Jahee later that he couldn't believe she was a Cylon because she was in the peace movement with Mr. Jahee back on _Cloud Nine_. Then a Boomer Cylon came in with a copy of Leoben—the one they say Ms Roslin threw out of the airlock—he really looked like he hated her. But Mr. Gaeta was there, along with that reporter, D'Anna Biers, a Cylon like the guy that tried to bomb _Galactica_ and a black guy."

Starbuck blanched as she looked up at Tigh and Tyrol. The boy continued his story.

"I could see that Ms Roslin was scared when they came in, but then she got really calm and cool, and she told Dr. Baltar that she was surprised to see him considering all the important things he had to discuss with his new friends, or perhaps they were old friends. And then he said that the Cylons had come in peace, but that they wouldn't stand for any resistance—then he tried to get her to tell them where you guys were.

"But she didn't tell them," he said proudly. "Instead she asked Dr. Baltar in front of everyone who came to pick up their kids, when he first knew he was a Cylon—before or after he and his blonde friend nuked the Colonies."

They looked at the child in abject horror.

"But Dr. Baltar got mad and said he wasn't a frakking Cylon, and then she said, no he was just frakking one and that he was the one who gave her and the Cylons access to the Colonial defence system. Mr. Troyolus asked Ms Roslin what she was talking about and she said really sweetly that she thought that since he was the President's close personal friend, Dr. Baltar would have told him about his greatest triumph—forty billion people killed in an afternoon.

"That's when the President got really mad and told everyone to take their kids out of there and that there was a curfew. Everyone got really scared and just ran away. I was just outside the tent and that's when I heard him tell her that she wasn't in charge anymore. He called Ms Roslin an arrogant bitch—said that he'd made her … had g-given her a second chance at life and now he was going to take it away. And that since she'd killed the Cylons' God-begotten child, she was the next best thing for them to study since the baby's blood was in her veins. He told her that they were going to dissect her and that he was going to watch them do it."

Tears rolled down the boy's cheeks again. "You won't let them do that to her, will you Starbuck?" he asked, voice trembling.

The only answer he got from the Colonial soldiers was oppressive, futile silence. Then a voice did answer him.

"No, we won't, young man," Collette Tsien said and literally materialised out of the darkness.

The Colonials brought up their weapons as Starbuck scrambled back, keeping her body between the boy and the intruders.

"Please," Collette continued holding up her hands. "We're not Cylons, Colonel Tigh. My name is Major Collette Tsien, commander of the Imperial Marines for _Emperor Herdan_ , a ship in the Imperial Navy of His Royal Highness, Emperor Colin MacIntyre the First. I hail from Earth—I believe you've been looking for us?"

"How do we know that this isn't a trick?" Tigh demanded. Collette could see that he—that they all—desperately wanted to believe her.

"Arash, if you please," she said. Her XO nodded and came forward with three laden men. One by one each marine dropped his burden with a resounding _thud!_ "My captain figured that you had all right to be sceptical, so we came bearing gifts," Collette said. The soldiers opened the cases and stepped back. "We didn't know what we'd find when we came down; we could only hope that there would be an organized resistance. So, we brought enough weapons and suits of unpowered light armour for fifteen hundred."

Starbuck fell to her knees in front of one of the cases and pulled out one gun, her face alight with awe and gratitude. "Oh, praises be to Artemis," she whispered reverently.

"How many people do you have, Colonel Tigh?" Collette asked. "We don't want to have to penetrate the Cylons' planetary cordon a second time before our captains can coordinate a battle plan with your Admiral Adama."

"You've been in contact with the Old Man?" Tigh asked; the relief was plain on his face.

"No, not yet—your ships hypered out before we could contact them," she replied. "My captain sent two of the ships in our task force after them. They should be making contact within the next day—in fact it's about time I introduced you to our captains."

"You can't break radio silence!" one of Tigh's men hissed in outrage.

Collette smiled thinly. "We're not breaking _radio_ silence, sir," she said quietly, "because we're not _using_ radios." She pulled a small device from her belt. "In fact, Earth hasn't used anything as primitive as radio in over fifty years. _This_ is a fold-space comlink—it cannot be tapped by anyone not using fold-space technology. And of course, we've brought enough for everyone," she said grinning. "Fleet Captain MacIntyre, did you get all that?" she called to their surprise.

"Yes, Major Tsien," came another woman's voice, "we hear you loud and clear. Colonel Tigh, I know that you have a lot of questions and we'll try to answer them as we go along, but time is of the essence here and we need to get recon on the Cylons' force capacity on the ground."

"Colonel Tigh," Boxey's high boyish voice was anxious. "I almost forgot to tell you, sir—Cally said that Chief Laird from _Pegasus_ counted them and he said that about eighteen columns of Centurions fanned out to surround the town’s perimeter."

Tigh paled. "So, including the ones that are patrolling inside the town, we're looking at eighteen hundred to two thousand Centurions alone," he said. "Add to that the human-form Cylons we've seen going around in groups of three or six, and we're looking at about two thousand to twenty-five hundred on the ground right now."

Collette let her inner predator off the leash with feral grin. "And here I thought we were going to be out-numbered," she drawled lazily. At Tigh's look of confusion, she clarified. "I brought down seven hundred and fifty Imperial Marines and five heavy assault shuttles, Colonel. They're camouflaged about ten kilometres away—we're just the advance scouting force."

"By Zeus!" Boxey breathed in awe.

"Thank you, Master Alexander," Captain MacIntyre said. "You have been invaluable. Tell me now, young sir, would your presence be missed in the town if you were to be taken to one of our assault craft tonight?"

Collette could see that the boy was clearly torn, but in the end, he said manfully, "Yes ma'am, I have to go back. They'll know if I was gone much longer."

"Boxey … no!" Tyrol gasped, horrified. He turned to Collette. "There's no need to send him back … it's too dangerous. Take him to the safety of your ship."

"What about Cally, Chief?" Boxey said. "What about your baby? Doc said that she'll deliver any day now, but a bunch of people are sick with pneumonia and a lot of the old people are dying and he can't be everywhere. Everyone knows that I help Cally out and they'll know something was up if I just disappeared. No one is helping anyone else but Doc Cottle and the few Colonial warriors who couldn't get out of town. When Dr. Baltar came for Ms Roslin, no one tried to help her. They all just collected their kids and ran back to their tents like frightened daggits in their dens. They just let the Cylons march Ms Roslin through town like she was a criminal!"

"All right, Alexander," the captain’s gentle voice said. "Then we'll need you to take a few things back for us. Two will be fold-space commlinks. We'll need for you to give one to your Cally and one to Dr. Cottle because they seem like the most reliable people in town. The third piece of equipment is a fold-space scanner for Dr. Cottle. If he can, he's to hide it somewhere close to where the human-form Cylons seem to congregate to plan, but only if he can do it without getting caught. Do you think that you can smuggle these things through without getting caught, Alexander?"

"Sir?" Tyrol said helplessly to Tigh.

"Chief Tyrol," Captain MacIntyre’s voice was stern. "It pains me to have to use a child in this manner, but let's be practical—he is the best person for the job. Young Master Alexander is an intelligent and resourceful person and I have all confidence in him."

"Honestly, ma'am, I don't know if I can get back in without being caught," Boxey said, his voice quivering despite his obvious effort to keep it steady. "I was just planning to fill my bag with berries or the wild greens Dr. Cottle said were safe to eat, so that if I was caught I'd tell them that I went berry picking for me and the other orphans because people tend to forget to feed anyone but their own when there’s trouble. If they catch me with those things, they'll know right away—although, I suppose that I could hide them at the bottom of the bag and put the greens on top of them."

"Ma'am?" Starbuck said. "It's Starbuck, ma'am—Captain Kara Thrace. How good are your people's camouflage suits?"

"Extremely good, Captain Thrace," Captain MacIntyre replied. "In their powered camouflage armour, no one without a fold-space scanner should be able to detect my Marines unless they literally bump into them. Why?"

"Then what about having Boxey go back with just a bag of greens as planned," she replied. "Let him be caught and thoroughly searched. Meanwhile, one of your people can slip in and drop those items into his bag after he's been searched, and then slip out again. That way we guarantee the items get into town, but we make sure Boxey is exposed to as little risk as possible."

"That just might work, Captain Thrace," Collette Tsien said. "And I'll do it _myself_."

#


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And since I'm having trouble falling asleep - and tired of going in circles with one of my stories - here is another chapter before I turn off the lights and force myself into unconsciousness. Enjoy!

_"We have to go back!"_

William Adama looked at his son with something akin to exasperation. "I know that, _commander_ ," he said, "but we need a plan. It won't do them any good to jump back only to get ourselves shot out of the sky by the _frakking_ Cylons as soon as we do!” Lee nodded and clamped his mouth shut; his lips thinned with suppressed anger and frustration. “All right, how is the call for work crews from the civilian ships coming?”

“Not good,” Lee replied. “Anyone with viable skills is already working with us or on the civilian ships’ work crews and most of them only have skeleton crews to begin with. The majority of the people left on the ships were too high-powered to get their hands dirty with the scut-work that goes into building the colony. They were just waiting for Baltar to get his act together, build them proper palaces and paved roads as befits people of their status,” Lee sneered, “and they’re definitely too high-powered to grease under their frakking fingernails defending the fleet. In fact, they’re all clamouring about why we haven’t jumped away yet and some are even trying to bully the civilian captains into jumping away solo.”

Adama nodded; thank the Gods that anyone sane enough to captain a ship knew that it would be suicide. “And Zarek is rattling his sabres already,” he said in disgust. “As far as he’s concerned, everyone on that planet is already dead and as the duly-elected Vice President and now Acting President, he demands that we leave this area—cut our losses to _protect what is left of humanity_.”

“Like he isn’t as responsible as Baltar for this frakking mess!” his son said hotly.

“All right,” Adama said. “I want as many people as we can put into Marine combat gear to shuttle over to the fleet and I want every able-body person over the age of fifteen and under the age of thirty brought back to _Galactica_ … no exceptions. Anyone older than that, who hasn’t already volunteered, will be more trouble than they’re worth. If they’ve got a kid, bring it along—we’ll sort it out later and it’s not like we don’t have the room to bunk them temporarily. If anyone refuses, you’re authorised to make an example of them—shoot the _frakker_ if you have to, preferably somewhere non-lethal like the foot and we’ll sort that out later also.”

Lee’s eyebrows flew up to his hairline, but Adama had to give him credit, he knew better than to ask if his father—and Admiral—was serious.

“Yes, sir,” he said and nodded before turning smartly on his heel to leave.

William Adama sat motionless on the couch for a moment after the hatch closed behind Lee; then ever so slowly, his shoulders drooped and his head fell forward into his hands. He didn’t know how long he sat there like that, feeling his heart fill up with tears. Forty thousand people possibly dead or dying—including Kara, the daughter of his heart—and all he could think of was her. Laura.

He remembered her last day on _Galactica_ and wished that he’d had the courage then to say what was in his heart. After she'd lost the election, Baltar had hustled her off Colonial One with almost indecent haste, and with no where else to go, she’d accepted Bill’s offer of quarters with her usual grace. At their first dinner alone together, Gods help him, he’d been—in some ways—glad that she’d lost. He’d ignored the sadness, the worry in her grey-green eyes, and had been glad that he could finally have her to himself like this … that she had come to him at last without demure or having to consider the consequences for their respective offices.

But it had been short-lived. Within two weeks, Baltar had begun his nonsense of sending all civilian and non-essential personnel down to that mud-ball and a former president and schoolteacher certainly fit his criteria. That last day, it had almost seemed like she was waiting for something—for him to ask her to stay perhaps, but he’d been too much of a coward to get the words out, and so she’d left.

It ate at him now that he’d never told her he loved her the only time they’d made love—that he hadn’t begged her to stay, as every fibre of his being had been screaming at him to do on that last day. He hated to think that she’d left _Galactica_ believing that he didn't love her.

#

_William didn't know exactly when everything had changed so irrevocably, he only knew that they had. He and Laura sat on his couch kissing. The attraction between them was undeniable and since she’d moved to_ Galactica _, it had become almost unbearable. He wanted her to stay with him—he wanted her to stay and never leave ... and in the last few days, his feelings for her threatened to overwhelm him in a way no other woman had before. As his hands began their familiar groping beneath her half-buttoned blouse, she rose, breaking the kiss and held out her hand to him._

_“This isn't enough,” her eyes seem to say. “These tentative explorations are not nearly enough.”_

_The evening had begun as it did for the past few nights, with dinner, music, ambrosia and a little laughter, followed by discussions of the day's events, which inevitably led to more_ personal _discussions and explorations on the sofa. But as Laura held William's eyes and he took her hand, he let all other thoughts—except those of her—go._

_Her dark eyes danced as he stood looking down at her and reached out to caress her face. His lips parted to speak and she covered them gently with her fingers, as if she knew what he wanted to ask—if_ she _was ready, if_ she _was sure—for, at that moment,_ he'd _never been more …_ sure _of anything in his life. The short walk to his rack seemed to take forever, each step, each breath etched indelibly in his mind. He turned her to face him and lowered his lips to hers in a gentle kiss that built in pressure and passion so slowly, he thought his mind would explode with the culmination of the sensation._

_Her small moan as they broke for air seemed to be the catalyst that increased the pace of their languid activity as he swept her up in a heady, crushing kiss and she fumbled with the buttons of his shirt as best she could with so little space between them._

_Suddenly, as he pulled off her blouse, he was aware of the cool air of the room on his back, but his brain barely registered that he was no longer wearing his shirt. He pushed her pants and underwear down over her hips as he covered her mouth again and before long she was on the bed wearing nothing but her bra. Her hands played frantically over his smooth, muscular back as he lay on top of her, kissing her passionately. She tugged wordlessly at his rough uniform pants, trying to get it over his hips. He moved away from her for a moment, shucked it quickly, then lay down beside her and gathered her into his arms._

_Laura draped one shapely leg over his bare hip, rubbing against his insistent, throbbing erection as he rolled her beneath him. For a moment his face hung over her and his eyes searched hers as she pulled him to her and he sank into her for the first time. As his lips covered hers, she wrapped her long legs about his hips and they slipped into the eternal rhythms of their dance._

_When he woke some time later, Laura lay on her side—head propped up on one hand—watching him. She chuckled as she rolled onto him and looked directly into his one opened eye._

_"I see that you wake up angry," she said in a low, lascivious voice._

_"Angry?" he asked in confusion, and then groaned as she wrapped her small hand around his burgeoning erection._

_"Ohhh … yes," she whispered hoarsely. "He's definitely very angry, but I know something that will make him happy again—"_

_He loved her pillow talk, her wit and this ability to wind him up with simple innuendo._

_"What's that?" he asked in a strained voice that gave away to a series of long drawn out groans as she straddled his hips and lowered herself to take him into the depths of her being. Bracing her hands against his scarred chest, she began to move slowly above him as he reached up to cup her full breasts._

_"Is he happy?" she purred looking down lustily into his eyes._

_"Ohhh, very happy," he groaned. Weaving his fingers through her thick, lustrous mane, he pulled her head down for a long, languorous kiss._

#

William removed his hands from his head and looked down at his wedding ring. Resolutely, he twisted it off, bruising his knuckle with the effort. He studied it gleaming in his palm for a moment, and then slowly closed his fist around it; he wouldn’t put it back on until she put it—or one like it—on his finger again. He would always love Anne and Caroline, but they no longer held his heart.

_Hold on, Laura_ , he prayed, _I’m coming back for you_.

#


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 3:30 AM and can't sleep; my mind keeps spinning and spinning, unable to get any traction on sleep. So, to break free of the endless spinning, here I am posting.

Lee was right, Adama realised as he studied the latest “recruits” as they left the raptors. Most of this batch was kids under twenty and many were dressed in fine fripperies he hadn’t thought were even available anymore. But even the older, more defiant-looking ones still looked properly scared, which was what he needed right now.

Lieutenant Katraine, _Galactica’s_ interim CAG addressed them before they had a chance to even catch their bearings. “You are all, as of this moment, non-commissioned officers in the Colonial Fleet,” she said ruthlessly. “You will be assigned to either _Galactica_ or _Pegasus_ and you will learn your respective jobs as you go. In twelve days, we will jump back to New Caprica whether your candy-asses are ready or not. I suggest you _get_ ready, because if this ship goes down, we all go down with her.”

Adama watched as Katraine and Lieutenant Anastasia Dualla, now XO of _Pegasus_ , proceeded to divvy-up the newbies and assign them to sections. Gods he was tired, but then everyone was tired, working for the last three days without sleep. Both Katraine and Dualla looked like death warmed over, but they, like the rest of his people, kept going at the hectic pace he’d set.

The blat of klaxons banished all thoughts of sleep. Adama rushed automatically to the nearest intra-ship phone before they even had a chance to page him.

“Adama, go,” he said.

“Admiral Adama, we just had a contact jump onto DRADIS and then disappear,” said the officer of the deck, Lieutenant Peter Collis, one of _Galactica’s_ helmsmen that Adama had promoted to head navigator when Gaeta had jumped ship with Baltar.

“What do you mean _disappear_?” he demanded.

“I mean disappear, sir,” Collis said evenly. “One moment we’re reading a solid, but distorted contact about twelve minutes out; then all the gravitational readings went crazy and then nothing.”

“Did they jump out?”

“Negative, sir,” the navigator replied. “We could find no evidence of a jump being initiated.”

“Have the fleet start cycling their jump engines—I’ll be right up,” Adama said, banging the phone back into its cradle and hurrying away from the flight deck.

Five minutes later he was in CIC reviewing the recording of the contact. Collis was right; the entire thing was screwy. Adama dry-washed his face and forced himself to think.

“I’m getting a com signal on our Priority One channel, sir,” the ridiculously young petty officer manning Communications said. Adama had thought that Dualla was young two years ago, but she’d been twenty-one and this kid was barely seventeen.

“From _Pegasus_?” Captain Jake Kelly, _Galactica’s_ new executive officer, asked.

“No, sir,” she replied. “In fact, _Pegasus_ should be getting it too.”

“Well let’s hear it,” Adama demanded impatiently.

"Opening Priority One channel now, sir," the girl said, voice quivering uncertainly as Dualla and Katraine rushed into CIC.

"… Admiral William Adama, come in Admiral Adama. This is Fleet Captain Carol Windermere, commander of _Vengeance_ , and Fleet Captain Azuka Riddick, commander of _Fleur-de-Lys_ , two ships in the Imperial Navy of His Royal Highness, Emperor Colin MacIntyre the First. Admiral Adama, we hail from Earth and were sent to find you when we picked up the nuclear explosion in the molecular cloud. We bring greetings from Colonel Saul Tigh, and Starbuck asks, "Hey, old man, what do you hear?"

Adama had to take a deep breath in order to keep his voice from shaking as badly as the girl's had only a few minutes ago. Picking up the phone, he ordered, "Put me on the Priority One com."

"You're on, sir."

“Nothing but the rain,” he answered the strange woman.

“Then grab the cat and bring your gun, sir.”

“Boom, boom, boom,” the woman said in unison with Adama.

"This is Admiral William Adama," he said. "How do you know the names Starbuck and Saul Tigh?"

The young woman's voice was quietly jubilant when she replied. "Sir, two of our ships, the _Emperor Herdan_ , under Fleet Captain Princess Isis Harriet MacIntyre and _Indomitable_ , under Fleet Captain Tamman Givens-Tsien, are currently under cloak in the New Caprica system," Windermere said. "In fact, Captain MacIntyre had been about to make contact with you when the Cylons surprised her by hypering in and you surprised her even more when you hypered out and showed up in this system almost instantaneously. As _Vengeance_ and _Fleur-de-Lys_ were scouting close to this sector, Captain MacIntyre sent us to make contact. As of twenty standard hours ago, sir, an advanced force of seven hundred and fifty Imperial Marines and five heavy assault shuttles were successful in making a covert insertion down to the planet to support Colonel Tigh’s and Captain Thrace's resistance fighters."

A great shout of surprised jubilation swept over _Galactica's_ bridge. Adama felt his heart almost stop in his chest and forced himself to breathe.

As the noise died down at last, Windermere continued, "Sir, if you would allow, Captain Riddick and I could come over to _Galactica_ ; we'll bring a communicator that would facilitate conversation with Captain MacIntyre and Colonel Tigh."

"Across fifteen and a half light years?" Dualla said incredulously. All sound ceased in the CIC.

"Yes, ma'am," the other woman replied. "It seems that our technology in some areas is more advanced than yours. We'll be bringing over a simple fold-space comlink, but our ship has what is called a hypercom—its range is about five thousand light years, but it's a mother of an energy hog," she said with a chuckle.

"I'll bet," Katraine muttered under her breath. "Why can't we see you on our DRADIS scopes," she asked, pitching her voice more loudly.

"We didn't want to startle you unduly, ma'am," Windermere replied, "and we couldn't be sure you wouldn't start shooting, so we cloaked our ships as soon as we left hyperspace and micro-jumped to our present position. We're dropping cloaks now—two new contacts should be showing up on your scanners about five light seconds out."

"Admiral Adama," came Collis' strangled voice. "If these readings are correct, those ships are the size of planets!"

Windermere laughed again. "Not planets exactly," she said brightly, "more like good-sized moons or planetoids."

"And you have four of these ships out here?" Adama said in awe, hope burgeoning in his chest once more.

"Six, sir," Windermere replied. " _War Hammer_ and _Enterprise_ were scouting for you on a third vector. Currently they're on route to New Caprica and should reach that system within seventy-four hours. Time is really of the essence here, Admiral Adama." Windermere's voice lost all traces of humour. "We have indications that matters have begun to deteriorate on the planet. The town is under curfew while they search for the resistance members and it appears that your President, Dr. Baltar, is actively aiding the Cylons—and has been all along. Our scan intelligence also show that the Cylons have human prisoners on board their mother ships, and we don't think they came from New Caprica; the only conclusion we could come to was that they were survivors taken from your original homeworlds."

"Of course, Captain Windermere," Adama replied hoarsely. "Please come over at your convenience. Commander Adama and I will be waiting."

#


	7. Chapter 7

The shuttle was sleek and rounded, and like nothing William Adama had seen before. The two women who exited ahead of their personnel could not have been more different—so diametrically opposite in every way that it seemed they were a matched pair. One was small and trim, with pale, creamy skin and a halo of short, white-blonde hair framing her face, while the other was tall—at least a head taller than every man on the flight deck—built like an Amazon, with skin like burnished ebony and long, midnight-black hair pulled back into a severe ponytail.

"Admiral Adama," the blonde said stepping forward and holding out her hand. He took it and they shook hands enthusiastically. "I'm Fleet Captain Carol Windermere."

"And I am Fleet Captain Azuka Riddick," the black woman said, her voice low and melodic as they shook hands.

“May I present Commander Lee Adama, commander of _Pegasus_ ,” Adama said, introducing his officers. “Lieutenant Anastasia Dualla, Commander Adama’s Executive Officer, Captain Karl Agathon, commander of _Pegasus’_ air group, my interim XO, Captain Jake Kelly, and Lieutenant Louanne Katraine, acting commander of _Galactica’s_ air group.”

After they all shook hands and the Imperials introduced their senior officers, Commanders Chiang Chen Lu and Emmanuella Morales, Adama lead them his quarters.

“May I ask why you were looking for us?” Lee asked after they’d all settled around the table. “You said that you detected the nuclear explosion that destroyed _Cloud Nine_?”

“Yes, Commander Adama,” Captain Windermere replied, “but that’s rather misleading. Our original mission was as a Survey Task Force. We were surveying some systems about five hundred light years from this area, looking for signs of indigenous intelligence and assessing threats. You see, our defensive coverage of Earth and the Fifth Imperium is rather shallow out in this direction towards the Galactic Rim—only about one thousand light years deep. When our FTL sensors detected the nuclear explosion and our scan analysis determined that it was not endogenous to the New Caprica star itself, but possibly originated on or near a planet in the theoretical habitable zone of the star system, well we knew that there had to be _someone_ out here. Quite frankly, Commander, we were expecting bug-eyed aliens. Imagine our shock when we started picking up radio and video transmissions somehow accelerated through hyperspace … and found that you were human. But the sources of the transmissions seemed to originate on very divergent vectors—I guess because you jumped around so much—and it didn’t immediately follow that the explosion and the transmissions had the same cause, so we split up the Task Force to cover a greater volume. Anyway, it took our linguists some time to decipher your language—”

“Decipher our language?” Dualla said. “But you speak our language perfectly—with a bit of a strange accent, but you’re still perfectly understandable.”

The black-skinned captain smiled and it was as if her face was lit from within. “Actually, Lieutenant Dualla,” she said, “the language you speak for the most part hasn’t been a living, spoken language on Earth for at least three thousand years. We had to scramble like mad to learn it before contacting you.” Adama knew that like his officers, he was gaping at the Imperials in shock. “The majority of the language you speak is based on what we call Ancient Phoenician influenced heavily by Ancient Greek, Persian, Etruscan and a few other languages, but once we realised what was going on, it was fairly simple to learn. It also helped that your writing system hadn’t changed too drastically and was mostly based on Phoenician influenced by Greek, and that _our_ standard language and writing system evolved almost completely from the Greek alphabet.”

She tapped a small device and Adama found his name projected into mid-air, but with almost ridiculous solidity. “This is your name rendered in your language, Admiral Adama, as well as your alphabet,” Captain Riddick said, “and this is your name in Ancient Phonecian.”

She tapped the control panel again and another set of characters joined it, and though it was written all in superior case letters and the construction of a few of the letters was somewhat strange, for the most part he could tell that it said “William Adama”. A third set of characters joined the first two. This time it was harder to decipher; many of the superior case letters of the alphabet seemed flipped or upside-down or backwards, but at least some of the inferior case letters were still recognisable.

“That is your name in Ancient Greek,” she continued. “It seems that your people fused using Phonecian for your capital letters with something akin to Greek—perhaps a proto-Greek language—for your common or lower-case letters, and we’re still deciphering the nuances of your grammar and punctuation rules. However, this is how your name would look in one of Earth’s most commonly spoken language, the one that’s become the language of diplomacy, trade and commerce, English.”

Adama looked at the almost gibberish on the display. After a moment, he could see how it related to what she had called “Greek”, but still it would take him ages to learn this—if ever he could. He knew that he radiated dismay as he looked at her, but he couldn’t help it.

Riddick’s dark eyes twinkled, and when she spoke, there was laughter in her voice. “Don’t worry, Admiral Adama, English is not quite as terrifying as it looks,” she said. “Although for someone who isn’t a native speaker, it is one of the more illogical languages in all creation.”

“Why?” Lee asked. “Just how many languages do you speak on Earth?”

This time, an uproarious laugh escaped Captain Windermere, and the others joined in much to the Colonials’ consternation.

“Well, how many stars can you count in the sky at night, Commander?” Riddick asked, shocking them thoroughly again, but after a moment the Imperials brought their laughter under control. “Again, it’s bad enough, but not as bad as you think. Let’s put it this way, only Carol here would be considered a native English speaker. My native language is called Igbo.”

Suddenly, she let out a stream of impossibly incomprehensible sounds, punctuated by clicks and percussive stops. When she stopped her otherworldly litany, she started chuckling again as she turned to her executive officer. “Chiang?”

The almond-eyed man smiled. “My native language is Mandarin, one of the main Chinese languages,” he said. “In fact, contrary to your accustomed way of ordering names, my family name is Chiang and my given, personal name is Chen Lu. Although few people would make a fuss, the proper way to address a person of Chinese background is family name first, followed by personal name. So, I am properly addressed as Chiang Chen Lu.”

This time, though he was expecting it, Adama still found the rapid changes in tonalities and almost musical phonemes of this language absolutely fascinating.

“And my native language is called Español or Spanish,” Emmanuella Morales said and then proceeded to give them an example of a lush language full of rolls and trills and verbal flourishes that surprised Adama again because it was so different from the other two examples.

Windermere chuckled quietly at their flabbergasted expressions as she said something in another lilting, musical language. “Not to be left out here, but if you count the fact that my maternal grandmother probably taught me to speak Welsh before I learned English,” she said with a devilish look in her eyes, “you would probably have to technically count me out as a _native_ English speaker.”

“Four people, four entirely different languages,” Dualla breathed in awe. “Dear Gods, no wonder you needed a common language for trade.”

“Now there’s an understatement if I ever heard one,” Morales laughed.

“All right,” Windermere said more soberly. “We’ll have lots of time for history and comparative language lessons later. The hypercom should be fired up and in contact with Captain MacIntyre by now.”

Riddick nodded and tapped the device’s controls once more. This time the space above the table blossomed with the image of a young, sable-haired woman with the face of a goddess. Next to her, Saul Tigh’s grizzled mug was almost a blasphemy.

#


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone still reading, I'm sorry to have been away so long, but it's been a long winter. I hope you are all staying safe and healthy!

“Hey there, Bill,” Saul said, his eyes incredibly tired. “I should have listened to my gut and never set foot on this ball of mud.”

“Saul,” Adama said hoarsely. “It’s good to see you.” Another familiar face came into the pick-up range just behind Tigh. “Kara,” he whispered.

“Hello sir,” she said with a wide smile. “Am I ever relieved to see you—hi Lee.”

“Hi Starbuck,” Lee said and Adama could hear the relief in his voice. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Apollo,” she said.

“We’re forgetting our manners here,” Tigh said. “Admiral William Adama, allow me to introduce Fleet Captain Princess Isis Harriet MacIntyre and she _is_ a genuine princess, Old Man. Apparently, her father is the ruler of the Empire of Man, which includes Earth, a capital planet called Birhat and dozens other worlds. Anyway, we’ve got to close this channel now, so that we don’t risk any stray power signatures, they tell me. We’re all safely aboard the Imperial Marines’ assault craft and we’re training on their weapons to get ready for the fight.”

“So, hurry up and get back here, admiral,” Starbuck ordered impishly.

“Will do, Starbuck,” William replied in relief as the channel closed.

“Actually, it’s only thirty-two populated worlds so far,” the princess said in a melodious voice, bringing his attention back to her.

“Your Highness,” Adama said, trying frantically to remember what the proper address for a princess would be.

“Please, Admiral Adama,” she laughed. “I’m just Harry or Harriet if you prefer—Captain MacIntyre if you want to get formal. My brother, Sean, is the heir to the throne and I’d just as soon keep it that way. A crown would get in the way of my vac-helmet, don’t you think?” she quipped.

Adama chuckled. “Understood, Captain MacIntyre,” he replied. “On behalf of my people, thank you for coming to our aid so quickly.”

“Admiral Adama,” she said bluntly. “If I hadn’t been such a cautious puss in the first place, I would have contacted you the day I entered the New Caprica system and together we could have blown the Cylons out of the sky the moment they showed up. Now it’s going to be a copper-plated bitch to keep those crazy machines from nuking the planet from orbit while we get rid of the Cylons on the surface, and not to mention it’s going to be even harder extracting the prisoners from the Cylon ships. Of course, if we’d just blown the Cylons up on arrival, we would have blown their human prisoners away also.”

Before Adama could respond to this extraordinary statement, she continued briskly. “I know that it’s going to sound like I’m dictating to you—”

Adama laughed ruefully and glanced at Dualla. “Believe me, Captain MacIntyre,” he said, “I’ve been taking orders all my adult life and taking them from junior officers is not a new experience for me—especially when they’re right. Besides,” he chuckled as he cut to the chase, “you’re the one with the ships the size of small planets and—unless I miss my guess—the really big guns. As long as we get our people out safely, that’s all that matters to me.”

Her eyes were wide with respect and she bowed courteously to him. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “In that case, we’ll need to get _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ in shape to jump back here in seventy-four hours if this is to be a total surprise to the Cylons.”

“Why seventy-four hours?” Lee asked.

“Because that’s when _War Hammer_ and _Enterprise_ will leave hyper and insert into normal space as far in-system as they dare,” she replied. “And there’s no way we can cover that up. You see, Admiral, Commander, our ships have two very different faster than light drive systems; an _Enchanach_ drive, which would take too long to explain, and a hyper drive, which is similar to your jump drives, except that we spend real time in hyperspace, whereas your ships jump almost instantaneously through hyperspace from one part of normal space to another.”

Adama and his people stared at her in shock. “You spend _time_ in hyperspace?” he said incredulously.

“Yes,” MacIntyre replied, “and once in hyperspace, a ship must stay there until it reaches the designated, programmed destination. There's no way to change direction. That is why our ships will be here in seventy-four hours. That's also why I sent Carol and Azuka after you when you jumped away from New Caprica. Admiral, it would take my ship, _Herdan_ , two days at flat-out maximum velocity to even get to you, and three and a half days at our normal cruising velocity.”

“Oh, my living Gods,” Lee whispered.

“As I said, Commander,” she continued, “dealing with the Cylons will be a copper-plated bitch. However, we are fairly sure that we can destroy their capital ships’ before they can jump out, but that doesn’t help much if we want to rescue the POWs. Frankly, we have no operational doctrine to fight people with such capabilities—you do, Admiral. And if they are truly intent on wiping you Colonials out, I doubt they will make the distinction between Colonial humans and Imperial humans once they become aware of us. Even this far from our borders is too close and we’ve had our own homicidal machine consciousnesses to deal with.”

“You created sentient artificial intelligences also?” Adama said in shock.

She shook her head. “Not us, Admiral Adama, but a xenophobic and genocidal alien species called the Achuultani did. However, their artificial intelligences turned on them, made them slaves to the machine and according to our best estimates, have drawn and quartered this galaxy for the last seventy _million_ years, trying to wipe out all forms of organic, sentient life that wasn’t Achuultani. If it wasn’t for another artificial intelligence called Dahak, created thousands of years ago and charged with safeguarding the human species, Earth would be a cinder today.”

The silent shock permeating the room was oppressive.

“But that’s a very long and painful story for when we have more time, sir,” she said and he nodded dumbly. “Needless to say, we fought them and won, but we only won a six hundred-year reprieve—so Earth and the Fifth Imperium may not be as safe as you think.”

“It’s safe enough from where I’m standing, Captain,” Adama said at last.

“Understood,” she replied. “But that war fifty years ago is why we won’t be taking you to Earth, but directly to the Imperium’s capital planet of Birhat in the Bia system. Earth was pretty devastated from the Achuultani kinetic bombardments and is only just now recovering from the mini ice age that was a direct result of it. Frankly, they have enough to deal with regarding our own fractious cultures, without throwing your entire culture at them.”

“And if you thought our various languages were bad,” Azuka Riddick said, “just know that each major language on Earth is associated with at _least_ three or four separate and disparate cultures, polities and—not to mention—religions that were all in perpetual war with each other off and on, sometimes for hundreds of years; often beyond the capacity of anyone to remember why they were fighting.”

“In any case,” MacIntyre continued. “Anyone who was going to move off Earth did so long ago, but approximately four billion people still call it home. Therefore, I have been authorised by my father, Emperor Colin MacIntyre the First, to let you know that once we reach Birhat, if your people choose to become citizens of the Imperium, but continue as an independent polity within it, you will have your choice of planets that are ready for colonisation as well as the requisite seats in the Imperial Government and the House of Nobles. He has also pledged the industrial infrastructure necessary to get your new world up and running within the next ten to fifteen standard years.”

Adama was stunned speechless.

_“Just like that?”_ Lee said incredulously.

“There are perks to being Emperor, commander,” she quipped. “There’s nothing better for cutting through bullshit and bureaucracy. However, we’re not as altruistic as you may think and you have something we need desperately—especially if the Cylons find the Imperium. I’ll be blunt, we need to know what you can teach us and we need to start retrofitting and building ships with your type of hyperspace drives as soon as possible. Quite frankly, Admiral Adama … Commander Adama, you won your new world on the strength of _Galactica’s_ and _Pegasus’_ drives alone. That you’re obviously an advanced human culture—cousins from across the stars—is all the more reason to offer you entrance into the Imperium. And despite whatever cultural or philosophical differences may crop up between our peoples in the future, we are safer together than apart.”

“Still,” Adama said hoarsely. “It’s more than we ever expected. Thank you.”

“You are most welcome, Admiral Adama,” she replied smiling. “Now back to business. As we understand from Colonel Tigh, most of your personnel were on the surface when the Cylons showed up. Therefore, Carol and Azuka have detailed teams of specialists and technicians to provide support services—free up your people to man the critical areas of your ships. We know that your fighter squads are undermanned, but it will take our people too long to get comfortable with your fighters, so we’ll co-ordinate our squadrons with those squads you can put in space. _Herdan_ and _Indomitable_ together have over three thousand fighters.” Adama heard the younger officers’ involuntary gasps; only his experience and training kept him from doing the same. “And _War Hammer_ and _Enterprise_ will add another three thousand.

“We’ll need you, Captain Agathon and you, Lieutenant Katraine, to co-ordinate with the commanders of our fighters, Major Diana Ingram and Major David Fugikawa, and bring them up to speed on your operational doctrine for engaging Cylon fighter craft.” Katraine and Agathon both nodded; Adama could see the stunned looks on their faces as MacIntyre continued, “We’ll need to install fold-space communicators in your pilots’ briefing room and aboard your birds. You obviously won’t have time to fly together, but it will give you a chance to get acquainted with the principals of each squadron. In fact, Major Ingram has suggested that depending on how many experienced pilots you have, each could take command a squadron of our fighters.”

Agathon and Katraine looked at each other. “Understood, sir,” Agathon replied. “We’ll need to know all their capabilities, but it should be doable.”

“Excellent,” MacIntyre said, “then Ingram and Fugikawa will be in contact shortly. As for _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ , we have teams ready to start immediately on any repairs the ships will need once you give the word. As well, both _Vengeance_ and _Fleur-de-Lys’_ machine shops have been producing railgun ordinances of the type our scans of your ships indicated you needed,” she said eyes twinkling as Adama mouth fell open again. “We’ve also taken the liberty of enhancing them with bomb-pumped laser warheads to make them a bit more, ah … effective—”

There was a sudden commotion of shouts and voices outside Adama’s quarters. Adama looked at Lee and he strode quickly to the hatch. As he opened it, Zarek’s voice was unmistakeable over the din.

“Adama! What in the name of Hades is going on here?” he demanded over Lee’s shoulder. “Why haven’t we jumped the people out of here to safety?”

Adama shook his head tiredly and met Harriet MacIntyre’s eyes; he’d hoped to get everything settled with the Imperials before having to deal with Zarek and his bunch. Again, he wished Laura was there—she could always put Zarek in his place.

MacIntyre met his gaze with a wolfish grin and gave him a devilish wink. “Let him in, Admiral,” she said in a low voice. “I can handle your Mr. Vice President.”

Adama’s eyes widened in shock and no little admiration; these people had really done their homework. He wondered now how long they’d been observing the fleet at New Caprica, but watching her eyes harden, he decided that it really didn’t matter. She was on his side and he was forever grateful.

“Let him through, Lee,” he said. Zarek swept into the room radiating fury and self-righteousness.

“Who are these people, Adama?” he demanded. “Where did they come from?”

“We are officers in the Imperial Navy of His Imperial Highness, Emperor Colin MacIntyre the First, Mr. Zarek,” Harriet MacIntyre said imperiously and Adama had to swallow his sudden urge to laugh. “I am Her Royal Highness, Princess Isis Harriet MacIntyre, Duchess of Birhat, Bearer of the Solar Grand Cross and Defender of the Imperium and Mother Earth.” Zarek’s sharp gasp at the word _Earth_ was loud in the suddenly silent room. “I have been solemnly enjoined by my father to make contact with Admiral Adama and offer our assistance in rescuing the people of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol from the Cylons. And that is just what my captains and I were doing when we were so rudely interrupted!”

“I’m sorry, your—Your Majesty,” Zarek said back-pedaling furiously as he regarded Harriet MacIntyre’s image. His shrewd eyes moved from the communicator to the other Imperials in the room. He turned angrily to Adama. “But I was not told that we’d made contact with people from the Thirteenth Colony. Adama, as the duly appointed Vice President and Interim President of our people, I should have been consulted.”

“It was a need to know basis, Zarek,” Adama said in a lazy drawl as he played along. “And frankly, our Imperial friends deemed that you did not need to know.”

At that Zarek’s florid face looked ready to burst a vein.

“I was instructed to make contact with the Colonial _Military_ leaders,” the Imperial Princess said, “not members of a government that would first force their populace down onto a ball of mud with false promises and even falser assurances of safety, while _they_ stayed where it was warm and dry and safe. I do not speak to government members who then try to force the military to abandon those people at the first sign of trouble!” she said ruthlessly and Zarek paled visibly. “And I do not speak to people—who through the basest manipulation of the media—would put a man like Baltar in a position of ultimate power for their own self-aggrandisement and just to stick it to a woman who had done nothing but try to do what was best for her people and keep them out of the clutches of people like you, Mr. Zarek.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zarek said heatedly. “And you certainly don’t know me!”

She laughed contemptuously. _“Know you?”_ she sneered. “I’ve had men like you trying to kill me practically since the day I was born, Mr. Zarek. You’ll take the role of kingmaker when it suits you, but what you really fancy being is king, because you _know_ what’s _fucking_ best for everyone! People are nothing but cardboard cut-outs to men like you. At best, they’re pawns in a strategy game to be sacrificed at your convenience. Well congratulations, Mr. Zarek, because your President Baltar, the ultimate traitor to the Colonial people and Cylon collaborator _you_ put in power, has just sacrificed the most powerful playing piece on that miserable game board you call New Caprica!”

Zarek stared at Harriet MacIntyre's image in utter confusion. “What are you babbling on about, woman?” he demanded.

“Laura Roslin, Mr. Zarek,” MacIntyre said coldly. Adama's eyes snapped to the Imperial woman's face and a terrible suspicion began to dawn as she continued. “Baltar has apparently been in league with the Cylons since the destruction of your colonies. He gave them access to your defence networks and now he's given them Laura Roslin to dissect because she carries the hybrid Cylon’s blood.”

William Adama’s heart seized in his chest and he gaped at the Imperial princess in absolute horror.

_Oh, merciful Gods, no!_ his soul screamed out to the void. _Laura!_

As his world went black, he saw his own horror mirrored on Harriet MacIntyre’s face as she realised who he was and what she’d done to him with her words.

He heard her anguished “ _Admiral_!” and Lee’s terrified voice screaming for Dualla to get his pills. Someone called for a medic and then he heard nothing at all.

#


	9. Chapter 9

Consciousness and memory returned all at once in one loud, painful exhalation and he found himself sitting up in bed. A nightmare … it had to be a nightmare. But catching the worried eyes of the young nurse who stood on the threshold of his bedroom, stark reality slammed him back down on his rack.

_What was her name? Cathy … no Cassie—a recent transfer to_ Galactica _from_ Pegasus’ _life station_ , he remembered as the young woman entered and handed him a glass of water and two small white pills. He sat up again and accepted it gratefully.

“I’ll let Dr. Salik, Commander Adama and Captain Kelly know that you’re awake, sir,” she said briskly.

“In a moment,” he commanded and she stopped in her tracks. Swinging his legs out of bed, he paused long enough to down the pills before standing up. “How long have I been out?”

“Three hours, sir,” she replied. “You passed out from a shock to your system, and once she determined there was no real danger, Dr. Salik felt that you should rest and advised against waking you right away.”

“I see,” he said moving over to the couch. “So, in other words, I fainted.”

She met his direct gaze with a sad smile. “Yes, sir … but from what I was told, it was understandable,” she said respectfully. “I’ll go now and let them know you’re awake.”

“Thank you.”

She nodded and left quickly. Sudden light from the corridor spilled onto the table, illuminating the Imperial communicator for an instant before the hatch closed again. Adama rose and walked over to the table. A green light blinked steadily next to a small metal stud; there could only be one reason for leaving the device.

He took a deep breath and picked it up, careful not to touch the stud as he walked back to the couch and sat down. He put it down on the low coffee table and stared at it for a long moment. Giving himself a mental shake— _this is no time for cowardice_ —he reached out and touched the stud.

Nothing happened for a few moments, and then Harriet MacIntyre’s beautiful face appeared. He could see the pain and regret in her dark eyes.

"Admiral Adama," she said quietly. "I am so sorry. I didn't think … didn't consider the consequences before speaking—"

He waved her off and sipped his water to moisten his mouth. "It's all right, Captain MacIntyre," he replied. "You couldn't have known."

She shook her head, smiling sadly. "No, I should have realised that there was bound to be feelings between you and Roslin," she said. "I had my xenologists reports regarding the events leading up to and after your schism over Kobol." He raised an eyebrow in askance and she chuckled softly. "You put her in jail, Adama—you were blind with anger when you did that and the only people that can make us that angry are family … the people we love."

He looked down at the glass in his hands, twirling it absently. "It wasn't something I ever expected to happen," he confessed to his surprise. He met her smiling gaze as she laughed heartily.

"It never is," she said. "My mother practically _killed_ my father when they first met, and then she wouldn't speak to him directly for months. We’ll do everything in our power, Admiral, to get her back safely."

Adama nodded; he knew what the odds were and he was grateful she didn’t make any empty promises. His phone rang. He excused himself and went to answer it. Lee's anxious voice touched something deep inside.

"Dad, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, son," he replied.

"I'm sorry I had to leave," Lee said, "but I had to co-ordinate with Captain Windermere and Captain Riddick in getting the techs and ordinances moved over, and detailing teams to take the Imperial work crews to the areas that needed the most urgent repairs on both Battlestars."

"That's fine, Lee," Adama said smiling. "You did the right thing and I'm just sitting down to discuss strategy with Captain MacIntyre. When you're finished, why don't you and Dee come over for dinner and we'll see about getting everything hammered out."

"All right, Dad," his son said, "but don't overdo it."

"I won't."

Lee laughed tiredly. "Yes, you will," he retorted, "but try not to overdo it too much, okay."

"Okay," he replied mouth twitching as he hung up.

Dr. Salik, _Pegasus'_ chief medical officer, bustled into his quarters after a perfunctory knock on the hatch, followed by a young red-haired man in an Imperial uniform.

"I see Cassiopeia was right," she said, hustling him over to the couch. "If you can take a moment from running the fleet, Admiral, I can convince Dr. Stewart here that I haven't been shortening your life with my primitive Colonial _witch-doctoring_."

"Admiral Adama," Stewart said shaking his hand, "Malcolm Stewart—oh, hello Harry."

"Hi Mal," MacIntyre said.

“And may I introduce Dr. Helene Salik,” he said.

Salik nodded at the image. “Sir.”

“Dr. Salik,” MacIntyre said. “Admiral Adama, I’ll leave you to your very capable doctors now. Just press the connect stud when you’re ready to resume our conference.”

“Thank you,” he replied and her image winked out. He turned attention back to the two doctors to find Salik looking impatiently at him. “All right, all right,” he said in capitulation and began to remove his shirt as Stewart laughed heartily.

#

William Adama's he stared at Harriet MacIntyre's hologram and Azuka Riddick in shock. Just when he was starting to get comfortable with the Imperials, they dropped this proverbial bombshell in his lap.

"You mean your people have voluntarily _fused_ yourselves with machines!" he blurted out in horrified outrage.

"Yes," MacIntyre said simply, regarding him with a calm expression as he tried to swallow his disgust.

" _Father of the Gods_ ," he whispered. "Everyone?"

"No, Admiral Adama," she replied, "by no means has all our people opted for biotechtic enhancements. In fact, most people who remain on Earth have not been enhanced; many because of religious or philosophical reasons. But although there are entire colonies where the members have opted not to take the enhancements, most of Imperium's colony worlds' populations do."

"As well, most of our military personnel have the enhancements," Riddick said. "We would not be able to handle the Imperium's technological base—especially our ships and military hardware without biotechtics."

"But make no mistake, Admiral Adama," Harriet MacIntyre said; her voice was a steel blade. "We are no less human than you. Biotechtics are simply tools, prosthetics on the order of an artificial arm or eye. We are nothing like the Cylons and there are no artificial intelligences in the Imperium other than _Dahak_. Our computers are specifically built to preclude that possibility. Only _Dahak_ , charged with the safety of humanity on Earth, which left him awake and aware for _fifty thousand_ years, has evolved into what we would consider a thinking, _sentient_ artificial intelligence. But the links from our brains to our computers are one way only—there is no way that a computer can infiltrate our minds. The Achuultani Master Computer couldn't and we're fairly sure that the Cylons will also not be able to."

Adama stared at them, his mouth dry as the Black Dessert of Tauron. Their story of _Dahak_ , the mutiny and the Fourth Imperium, and how it related to the Lords of Kobol, had left him breathless. But, somehow, he hadn't connected the ancient Imperial crew's technological enhancements with their modern descendants—hadn't realised that the people of the new _Fifth_ _Imperium_ would have needed to be similarly enhanced in order to handle the miraculous technology that was their birthright.

As the silence dragged on, he realised that there really wasn't much he could do; this had been a reality for Earth and Imperial society for fifty years and there was nothing to be done about it. He had to get over his visceral revulsion and trust them. William could already see that there would be grave consequences for his people in the future, but at least they were offering his people a future.

"I understand," he said hoarsely. "But you must understand also, this is going to quite a shock for my people—especially the civilians—when they learn of it. I would suggest that you keep this to yourselves for the time being and only reveal it to my officers on a need to know basis. They won't like it when they find out, but by that time, I hope that the majority of our population will be safe on board your ships and it will mitigate the fallout."

"Colonel Tigh and Captain Thrace were of the same opinion," Harriet replied. At his startled look, she smiled thinly. "They're training with my people, Admiral," she said. "They'd have to be _complete_ idiots not to notice my marines' interface with their battle computers; one thing I've noticed is that your people are definitely not idiots—and your Starbuck doesn't appreciate being treated like one."

William barked a laugh. "I don't suppose she does, Captain," he said. "How many noses did she break?"

"It's pretty hard to break enhanced noses," she chuckled softly at his surprise, "but let's just say she bloodied a couple."

#

“Ms Porter, Members of the Quorum,” Carol Windermere said; Lee Adama could see the effort it took to keep her voice even. “That is not possible. We are currently fifteen hundred light years from Earth—six and a half months’ travel through hyperspace. Birhat is seventeen hundred light years away, which is just over seven months’ travel. We have been ordered to take your people to Birhat as Earth is still recovering from an attack that nearly reduced it to rubble fifty years ago. Birhat has the necessary infrastructure to process and house your people temporarily until you’ve chosen a world for your new home. If, after you've settled down and your people want to visit or emigrate to Earth, that can be arranged, but when our ships leave here, we will be making for Birhat," she said and there was no mistaking the finality in her voice.

"Now, _Vengeance_ and _Fleur-de-Lys_ have more than enough room to carry your ships once they’ve been powered down. Of course, your population will have to be moved onto our ships and use our facilities for the duration of the journey, but each of our ships is rated for a maximum capacity of over one hundred thousand personnel—”

The collective gasp in the stunned silence told Lee that it had finally gotten through to them how insanely _big_ the Imperial ships were. His fighters had reported that each created its own gravity well.

“Of course, right now, each ship’s population is only at about fifty thousand crew and dependents,” she continued. “Once we’re done with the majority of _Galactica_ and _Pegasus’_ repairs, we can begin transferring your people and taking your ships into our holds. Once loading is complete, we will make immediately for Birhat. When New Caprica is liberated, the remainder of your population will be evacuated to the ships there and your Battlestars will be carried within their holds. They will then follow us to the Bia system. However, time is of the essence, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “If the Cylons jump in and find us here, while we’re still trying to evacuate your people, we will be at a distinct disadvantage trying to keep them from blowing your ships away.”

Of course, Lee didn’t believe that for a moment; having seen what the Imperials could do and furthermore and having met many of them, he knew absolute competence when he saw it. And he had no doubt that they would be more than a match for any Cylon. However, it did get Zarek and the Quorum properly motivated to co-operate with the evacuation plans.

Zarek smiled as he addressed the Quorum, advocating that they listen to Windermere, but to Lee’s eyes it seemed that his characteristic charisma was somewhat lacking since Captain _“The Princess”_ MacIntyre had torn a strip off him over Baltar and his treatment of Roslin.

Thinking of Laura Roslin brought a tight pain to Lee’s heart. From the start, he’d respected her—and perhaps for a while there he’d even been a little _in love_ with her—but over time he’d come to truly love her as a friend, even during those times he hadn’t especially _liked_ her, or her actions, very much. She was one of the few people who had, from first acquaintance, expected him to be his own man and not merely the famous William “Husker” Adama’s son and for that he would always be grateful, because in a way, by simply doing so, she’d helped him _become_ a man.

Seeing his father’s depth of love for the former President only intensified Lee’s fears over what might be happening to this woman he admired so much. Caught up in his own life, he hadn’t realised just how close a bond Roslin and his father had forged, but the utter fear and horror in his father’s eyes had driven it home. At the moment that his father had fainted dead away after hearing his beloved was in Cylon hands, all the pent-up anger and resentments Lee harboured for the old man had simply evaporated in a way that not even the first Valerii Cylon’s attempted assassination had been able resolve for him.

He’d been puzzling over it for the better part of a day now, and the only thing that made any sense to him was that he’d finally seen William Adama in a moment of human weakness. It was proof, at last, that his father was capable of such depth of feeling … such love. All of a sudden it crystallised for Lee, and he knew that despite everything that had eventually driven them apart, at one time, his father had loved his mother, Caroline, that much … that he'd loved Lee and his brother, Zak, as well as Kara—and even his second wife, Anne— _that much_.

It was another thing he was grateful to Laura Roslin for and he prayed to the Gods that he would have a chance to tell her so.

_Fearless Artemis, protect her from such monstrous evil; Great Athena, restore her to us._

#


End file.
